Chapter Sixteen — She Runs
I didn’t sleep.
Even curled within the stone circle, my mother’s cloak wrapped tightly around my shoulders, rest never truly came. My body lay still, eyes closed, but my mind churned endlessly — memories colliding with revelations, fear tangling with something dangerously close to hope.
My mother was alive.
The truth sat heavy in my chest, too big to fully absorb. Every breath felt sharper for it, like the world itself had shifted and left me struggling to keep balance.
She knelt at the edge of the stones through the night, keeping watch. I could sense her even without opening my eyes — the steady presence, the quiet vigilance that had followed me through the forest long before I knew her face.
When dawn finally bled pale gold through the mist, she rose.
“
