Elara’s POV
The walk back to the fortress felt longer than it should have.
Neither of us spoke. Snow crunched beneath our steps, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence that stretched between us. The forest no longer felt like something beautiful or mysterious. It felt like something watching, something that had already marked me in ways I didn’t understand. And Kael… he walked slightly ahead of me. Not far, but far enough.
The distance wasn’t physical. It was deliberate.
My chest tightened as I watched his back, the broad line of his shoulders rigid beneath the faint dusting of snow. His presence still wrapped around me, still pulled at something beneath my skin, but now there was tension in it. Resistance. Like he was fighting something. Or avoiding it.
I didn’t like that.
“You’r
