Damieon learned the sound of hiding before he learned the sound of safety.
It was the way the forest breathed differently at night. The way magic folded inward instead of reaching out. The way Riley moved through the trees without breaking branches, without disturbing leaves, without ever needing to look back to know he was still there.
They did not travel like fugitives.
They traveled like ghosts.
Three days passed before Damieon realized he had stopped asking when they would go home.
There was no home anymore. Not the kind that had walls and banners and guards who bowed when he passed. That place existed only behind his eyes now, flickering like a dream he wasn’t sure he was allowed to keep.
The forest became everything.
It wrapped around them in layers of warded silence, old magi
