The forest was too damn quiet.
Not peaceful-quiet. Not calming-quiet.
The kind of quiet that pressed in from all sides until every breath felt too loud and every heartbeat felt like it was echoing through my ribs.
Ethan hadn’t said anything in a while. Neither had I.
But he didn’t need to talk for me to feel him thinking beside me, weighing every unspoken spiral I’d fallen into since leaving the Academy grounds.
The longer we sat there, the heavier the guilt crept in. I’d blown off two classes. Maybe three. Professor Brannick was probably forging a silver axe with my name carved down the handle. Normally, that would’ve sent me into immediate panic.
Right now?
Sitting here in the trees with Ethan, letting my brain catch up to my body?
I didn’t regret a damn thing.
Above us, the war
