The memory shifted.
They ran for three days.
Fin watched it in compressed time, the hours collapsing into minutes, the landscape blurring beneath boots that never stopped moving.
Garrett carried Serena when her legs gave out. Elara ran beside him when she could and was carried on his other side when she couldn't.
The boy who would become the Alpha King of Darkhowler was sixteen years old and running through a mountain range that wanted to kill them with two girls, a sword, and the specific, bone-deep refusal to stop that belonged to a man who had made a promise to a dead king and intended to keep it.
He was the leader that was going to get them through this. And Fin now fully understood why Garrett was so protective over Serena and Elara. He knew Garrett was like a brother to them. But watching him carry both girls here as a kid himself was an image worth a thousand words. It was the kind of man Garrett was.
Both girls needed him.
The avalanche hit on the third day.
