Morning came slow.
As if the world was relearning how to breathe again. As if the sun had burned itself out and was trying to start over, the light was softer than I remembered, less gold and more pale. There was something new beneath the smoke that still lingered in the air. moist ground. moss from rivers. Life.
My legs became numb from sitting by the river. A few feet away, Thorn was still asleep, his head c****d toward me as though he couldn't stop protecting even when he was sleeping. His fire had gone out during the night but a faint heat still rose from the ground beneath him.
I wanted to wake him. I didn't.
It was odd how silent everything seemed. The forest wasn’t whole—half the trees were blackened bones—but birds had started to return anyway. One landed close, feathers dusty
