Chapter Seventy-Eight
Blade’s pov
The trek back to the compound was a descent into a frozen, silent purgatory. Every step toward the barracks felt like I was wading through quicksand, my boots dragging against the gravel as the crushing weight of my own failure settled into my marrow. I clutched the silver earring so tightly in my fist that the jagged metal bit into my palm, a sharp, stinging reminder of the moment I had chosen ghosts over the living.
I clung to a desperate, fraying strand of logic: It was just a delay. A misunderstanding. A missed connection. I convinced myself that the woods were vast and the night was thick; surely, she had just arrived at the tower, found it empty, and retreated in frustration. Tomorrow, I thought, the word echoing in the hollows of my mind like a
