In the weeks that followed, the world moved gently on. The war was over. The treaty held. The borders stayed quiet.
But inside Sofia—nothing was quiet. Grief had hollowed her, and it didn’t echo—it just sat there, heavy and patient. She didn’t train. Didn’t shift. Didn’t run.
She woke early and stared at the ceiling. She lay beneath blankets that still smelled like sage and memories.
Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she didn’t. There were days she didn’t speak at all.
She answered her mother’s knock with silence. She ignored her siblings' laughter in the hall. She drank tea she didn’t taste.
What she had felt for him hadn’t dulled. But the hope—the part of her that once glowed at the thought of him—had been buried in the fire he left her standing in, and some nights, she still smelled t
