I woke to a silence so absolute it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest. The room was bathed in the thin, watery light of an early mountain dawn, the kind that turned everything into shades of steel and ash. The fire in the hearth had finally died out, leaving behind nothing but a faint, charred scent and a coldness that crept across the floorboards. But beneath the heavy duvet, the heat radiating from Kasper's body was a steady, grounding anchor that kept the frost of the previous night at bay.
I didn't move. I couldn't. My body felt heavy, my muscles aching with a deep, bone-weary fatigue that wasn't just physical. It was the exhaustion of a soul that had been stretched to its breaking point and then snapped back into place. I lay there, listening to the rhythmic sound of Kasper's breathing—slow, deep, and surprisingly calm. It was a stark contrast to the jagged, frantic breaths we had shared hours before.
