---
—Lyra's POV—
I didn't sleep.
The blade lay across my knees like a sliver of night, humming with heat even in the cold den. The sigil on my arm pulsed gently—rhythmic, like Elior's breath beside me. I watched the door.
I had felt Lucian's presence before I ever heard him. Like the ache of an old wound before the weather shifts. His scent was faint—ash and pine and regret—and it was growing stronger.
The forest whispered as he approached, but it did not resist him.
Not yet.
I rose when I heard his boots crunch snow beyond the threshold. I stood in the entry, the moonlight casting my shadow across the den floor.
He stepped into view.
Lucian.
Gaunt. Wild-eyed. His cloak was torn at the hem, streaked with frost and blood. His face was hollowed by travel and grief, but his eyes… they burned.
Burned with longing. With guilt. With something I couldn't name.
"Lyra," he said, voice hoarse.
I didn't move.
"Don't," I whispered. "Don't say my name like you still have the right to."
He stopped a few paces away. The space between us was colder than the wind.
"I needed to find you," he said.
"You needed to leave me," I replied. "And you did. You left me alone with a child the kingdom wants dead."
He flinched. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
I stepped aside and gestured to the fire.
"You can sit. But not inside. You're not welcomed by the Hollow — not yet."
Lucian sat at the edge of the clearing without argument. I watched him through the den's veil of hanging roots, the fire casting flickering light across his face.
Elior stirred beside me, cooing softly.
And again, the blade pulsed.
---
—Lucian's POV—
She was more than changed.
She was reborn.
The girl I once held close in royal gardens, whispering stories of escape and freedom—she was gone. What stood now was a queen of ash and snow. Wrapped in furs, sigil burning, blade at her side.
She hadn't shed her softness.
She'd forged it into steel.
I tried to speak, but my words were ash on my tongue. The forest around me was unnatural. The trees leaned in like eavesdroppers. Shadows moved without wind.
"Is he…?" I asked, voice barely audible. "Is the child…?"
She emerged from the den with him in her arms.
Wrapped in dark silk, Elior's golden eyes stared up at me.
I froze.
He wasn't a normal infant. No infant should look at you like they knew who you were. Like they'd seen the stars be born and die.
"I named him Elior," Lyra said quietly. "It means my God is my light."
The name struck something deep in me. A truth I hadn't known I was starving for.
"He… he looks like you," I said. "The eyes. The way he doesn't blink."
"He looks like the world we never built," she said. "And I'll burn kingdoms to keep him safe."
I bowed my head.
"I'm not your enemy, Lyra. I never was."
"But you were a coward."
I nodded.
She knelt and placed Elior in a small bed of fur, kissed his brow, and rose again with her blade.
"Then prove you're not still one."
She walked past me, into the trees.
And I followed.
---
We said nothing for a while.
The moon followed us, fat and watchful. The forest whispered in languages older than crowns. I wanted to reach for her hand, to feel if she was real—but I didn't deserve that yet.
"Do you remember the old song?" she said suddenly.
"Which one?"
"The one your mother used to hum. About the firebird who burned every year to be reborn."
I swallowed. "Yes."
"She used to say you were that bird," Lyra said. "And I was the cage you'd outgrow."
"She was wrong," I replied. "I never wanted to fly away. I just didn't know how to stay."
She paused under an arch of bone-white roots. The silence between us pulsed like a wound.
"You want to stay now?" she asked.
"I want to burn with you," I said.
Her expression didn't soften.
But she didn't walk away either.
---
—Lyra's POV—
We returned to the den without speaking. I laid Elior in his cradle and sat by the fire.
Lucian stayed at the entrance.
The fire crackled between us, like a conversation we hadn't yet earned.
"There's something following you," I said after a long silence.
He stiffened. "I know."
"It's not of the Hollow. It doesn't belong."
"I think… it came from the old pact."
"The Blood Moon Pact?"
He nodded. "The crown used my blood in the rite that sealed the Ember Queen's tomb. I was the sacrifice that made the spell work."
"You were the key."
"And now they've sent a warden to retrieve me."
I stood. "Then we'll cut off the hand that dares reach for you."
Lucian looked at me with something like awe.
"You would fight for me?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'll fight beside you. For him." I nodded at Elior.
Lucian looked at the child.
Then back at me.
"I think I was always meant to stand beside you," he said. "But I was too afraid of your fire."
"And now?"
He smiled. "Now I think it's the only thing that keeps the dark away."
We didn't touch.
But our eyes did.
And that was enough.
For now.
---
—Somewhere beyond the Hollow…
The shadows gathered.
A figure cloaked in rotted velvet stepped into a clearing, bones crunching beneath his feet. Behind him, the forest died in his wake.
He knelt beside a pool of silver water and whispered to it:
"The child breathes. The pact weakens. She has awakened."
The pool rippled.
And a voice answered.
"Then it is time to send the Reaver."
The water froze solid.
And the figure smiled.
---