Morning came quiet. The kind of silence that still doesn’t trust itself. The air was so cold that every breath felt like it might shatter, and the ground was still wet from the previous night's rain.
With his arm flung across the grass and his face softer than I had ever seen it, Thorn was still asleep. I watched him for a moment, not because of who he was, but because of who he was no longer. No fire. No command. Just a man who made it through the same fate as me.
Overnight, the forest had changed. Flowers had begun to grow where the silver veins had once run. small ones. White, with a slight light pulse in the middle. One hummed beneath my fingers when I touched it, sounding like a heartbeat that I didn’t recognize.
I was reminded of the past by the scent of the wind. Honey and smoke.
