Nyx 's POV
Silence wasn’t empty with him around. It was full of the questions he wasn’t asking, the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes kept drifting to my face like he was trying to read a book in a language he didn’t know. The healing cut on his wrist was a ghost between us. A ghost I could still see every time I blinked.
I led him down to the private stables at the base of the fortress, not the garages. Engines were too modern, too closed off. I needed the open air. I needed to see the land, to feel the miles between me and the mess in my own house.
“Can you ride?” I asked, not looking at him as I headed for my mare, Onyx.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was still rough from where my hand had been. Good. Let it remind him.
“Where are we going?”
I didn’t answer. I tightened the g
