Sasha’s POV
The wind wept through the cracks in the cottage walls like a ghost mourning the dead. It wasn’t loud—not a scream or a wail—but something softer. More sacred. It felt like the forest itself was grieving—holding its breath in the cold silence between battles, cradling the ashes of everything we’d lost.
Alex knelt before me on the splintered wooden floor, bathed in the final glow of a dying fire. The hearth had dwindled to glowing coals, the faint heat barely clinging to the stone. Shadows danced across his blood-streaked face as his fingers—rough, bruised, trembling—pressed a warm cloth to the gash on my shoulder.
The water dripped down my arm, tinged pink with blood. Mine. His. It didn’t matter anymore.
I flinched.
Immediately, his hand froze. “Sorry,” he whispered, voice
