The flowers should have felt like victory.
Instead, they felt like a question.
Lila returned to the eastern clearing at first light, not because anyone asked her to, but because something in her chest refused to rest until she saw it again with waking eyes. Caleb protested, Seren argued, the healers scowled in a perfect chorus, and still she went—slowly, carefully, surrounded by more guards than she would have liked.
The path smelled of rain and crushed pine.
The baby was restless today, little flutters and pushes as if they too were curious about the world beyond stone walls.
“Easy,” Lila murmured, palm tracing small circles over her stomach. “We’re only visiting.”
Seren rode at her left, eyes never still. “If that ground so much as twitches, we leave.”
“It won’t,” Lila replied, th
