Alex's POV
The next few days slipped by like water through my fingers—fast, ungraspable, and somehow both too quiet and too loud.
Ever since Jaxon and I agreed to keep our distance, things had been… weird. Not tense exactly, but distant, and that distance echoed in everything I did. It was like he’d taken all the warmth from the room with him when he decided to permanently live in that damn cave.
I barely saw him, and when I did, it was always across a field, a hallway, or the edge of a training ring. We'd meet eyes sometimes, but neither of us lingered. It was like we’d silently agreed not to even look at each other, which was probably for the best.
Still didn’t stop me from noticing him every single time.
It didn’t help that Dorian, who was blissfully clueless about the mess going
