Days bled into night without names. The soil ceased to tremble, and the air lost its burn. Somehow, the world started to breathe again.
The sound of rain woke me up. Real rain, soft. The kind that didn’t sting or shimmer or smell of metal. Just water, falling slow through the trees, soaking the ashes until they turned dark and alive.
Coaxing a flame from damp wood, Thorn stood by the fire pit. His hands were still healing and clumsy. With her cloak draped over her shoulders, Mira sat close by, watching him like she didn’t know how to speak anymore.
Nobody did, really. This silence didn't lend itself to words.
I went outside the half-built shelter we had constructed out of fallen logs. Before me, the forest was vast and unending, bare in some spots and regrowing in others. Defiant litt
