They did not stop running until the last glow of Emberhollow vanished behind the ridge and the night swallowed them whole.Moonlight sifted through the pines in pale ribbons, silvering Kazeal's hair as he moved ahead of her silent, tireless, a shadow given perfect form.
Lira followed, legs shaking, lungs raw with cold air. But she refused to fall behind.
Finally Kazeal halted beside an enormous cedar whose branches swept the ground like a curtain of living shadow.
That's far enough, he said quietly. They won't follow us this deep. Not tonight, Relief hit her like a blow. She slumped against the trunk, dragging in sharp, icy breaths that tasted of resin and mountain frost.
When she lifted her eyes,kazeal was watching her not with suspicion, not with pity, but with the unsettling intensity of someone trying to understand a puzzle he hadn't expected to care about.
He offered his leather flask,
She drank deeply. The liquor was the same as before honey-smoke warmth sliding through her, but gentler this time, settling in her stomach instead of igniting her veins, Lira wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. You healed me earlier. How?
Moon-blood, he said simply, And stubbornness, Both run strong in my kind.
She snorted. "Elves didn't come down to help when Emberhollow burned."
"No," he said, soft and heavy. "They didn't."
There was history in that tone centuries of it—but she was too tired to pry.
Kazeal adjusted his pack. There's a clearing ahead We rest till dawn. Tomorrow, every road will have eyes.
He stepped forward and then She followed because anywhere else would be worse,
The clearing was a quiet miracle—a pool of silver grass, a thin stream humming over stones, and moonlight gathered like spilled milk. Kazeal set down his pack, unrolled two blankets, and sat cross-legged on one, bow resting across his knees.
Lira lowered herself onto the other, keeping a careful breath of space between them, The silence grew long and comfortable enough to be dangerous.
Then the words slipped out of her—raw and unguarded.
"I don't know if anyone I love is still alive."
She froze. She hadn't meant to say it, Hadn't meant to let anything break.
Kazeal didn't speak for a long moment. Then he shifted closer—not touching, but near enough that she felt the warmth radiating from him like a promise.
"I lost my home once," he said quietly. "My clan's grove burned when I was young. Different enemy. Same fire."
She turned to him. Moonlight softened his sharp elven angles, making him look almost human. Almost reachable,"How did you live with it?" she whispered.
"You don't live with it," he murmured. "You let it drive you forward until the weight becomes purpose. Tonight, your grief is still new. Let it be heavy."
Her throat tightened. A tear escaped—hot, humiliating, unstoppable. She swiped it away, but more followed. Before she could turn from him,Kazeal lifted a hand, slow and deliberate, and brushed the next tear away with his thumb.The touch was gentle,Too gentle.
Her skin burned.
She caught his wrist without thinking. His pulse jumped beneath her fingers—quick, betraying the calm he wore like armor.
"Why did you come back for me?" she asked, voice barely breath.
Kazeal held her gaze for a long moment,
When you stood in that square," he said softly, "bloodied and furious, a single mortal girl facing a pack of shadow-beasts… the night lit around you. Like sunrise breaking."
He leaned closer, voice dropping.
"I've waited three hundred years to feel something that bright again.
The air between them tightened, charged like the sky before lightning,Her breath caught.
His lips parted—just barely,
A branch cracked somewhere deeper in the forest.
Kazeal moved instantly, bow in hand, arrow drawn in a single fluid motion.
Lira rose beside him, staff ready.
They waited ,Listened
Nothing answered but the wind,
At length, Kazeal exhaled. "Stag, most likely. Or I'm jumpier than I look."
He sat again—but closer this time, their shoulders almost brushing.
"Try to sleep," he said. "I'll keep watch."
"I won't sleep."
A soft sound escaped him—half a laugh, half a sigh.
"Then we'll greet dawn miserable together."
So they sat side by side, sharing silence, warmth, and the first fragile threads of something neither of them could name yet.
Far off in the dark, a hunting horn sounded again—low, hungry, echoing through the trees like a promise.
Lira tightened her grip on her staff.
Kazeal hand slid over hers, warm and brief—not a question, not a command, just an anchor.
" Let them come," he murmured. "We're done running."
And as the stars dimmed, the fire inside her domant but alive waited for morning.