The Constellations Of Us

Chapter Five – Ripples in the Stream

The first thing I felt was the cold.

Dawn had not yet burned the mist from the trees, and the air was damp, clinging to my skin. I blinked awake to the sound of rushing water, the steady rhythm of the river nearby. Caelen was gone from where he had leaned against the tree. Only the faint indentation in the earth remained, as though he had never been there at all.

For a moment, panic curled sharply inside me. Then I caught sight of him across the clearing, crouched by the river’s edge, filling a waterskin. His hood was down, and though his back was to me, I could see the strength in the line of his shoulders, the stillness of a man carved from shadow.

Relief bled through me. The ache in my limbs from yesterday’s walk was relentless, my muscles stiff from the hard ground. The stream beckoned with its silver flow, cold and alive.

I moved toward the water. Caelen glanced up as I approached, his eyes unreadable.

“I’ll wash,” I said.

He gave a small nod and turned away, facing the forest.

Kneeling at the stream’s edge, I plunged my hands into the current. The shock stole my breath, but it scraped away the grime of travel, the weight of fear. I leaned forward, letting the water run across my arms, splash my face, soak through the hem of my dress. It was brutal and cleansing at once — a moment of fragile peace.

And then my skin prickled.

Not from the cold, but from something sharper. Crawling. Watching.

The current seemed to shift beneath me, dragging wrong, and my chest tightened as though unseen fingers pressed down.

I froze. The mist thickened, and branches bowed heavy with dew. Nothing moved — yet I felt him.

Darian.

The certainty struck like lightning. He was close. Too close.

I scrambled from the water, clutching my cloak, dripping and breathless. Caelen was already moving, his hand on his blade, his gaze scanning the trees.

“What is it?” His voice was low, edged with steel.

My throat worked. “He’s here.”

For the first time, something flickered in Caelen’s eyes — not annoyance, not coldness, but something dangerously close to concern.

“Then we don’t linger.” His hand brushed lightly against my arm, steadying me as my breath came too fast. “Dress quickly. We move now.”

Behind us, the forest whispered. Leaves stirred, not with wind, but with presence.

I saw nothing. Yet I felt the shadow of my fiancé pressing closer, patient as the night, certain as the stars that had already written our collision in their fire