POV: Kael
I’d watched Aria step into that spring like someone walking to her own funeral.
The steam curled around her body like smoke, softening the edges of her pain, but I saw it—the tremble in her fingers, the weight in her eyes. She hadn’t just been letting go of fear. She’d been letting go of a part of herself. When she stepped out of that water, something had changed. Something ancient had awakened in her. It wasn’t just power.
It was truth.
I didn’t ask what she saw. I knew better. We’d crossed the threshold where questions felt like demands. If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me. And when she didn’t say anything at all, I just wrapped a towel around her shoulders and walked her home.
That night, she curled up beside me in silence.
And for the first time in my life, silence
