The woods were colder without her.
Caelen wandered beneath twisted branches and pale moonlight, each step dragging as if the earth itself mourned. The weight of Elira's absence was a void carved into his chest, a silence that rang louder than any scream.
Her storm of pain had once echoed through him—a rhythm he had grown to know, to brace against, to rely on. Now there was nothing. Just stillness. Just loss.
Mooncrest's betrayal played on repeat in his mind. The false innkeeper. The blades in the dark. Her cry before she fell. He hadn't seen her face since. He hadn't heard her voice. Only that silence.
He staggered through underbrush, barely registering the branches that scratched at his skin. The Weeping Blade hung heavy at his side, its name now more fitting than ever. His wound throbbed beneath his tunic, a dull, persistent ache—a reminder of failure.
The curse, once a symphony of sorrow from the world around him, now reflected only one song: doubt.
Is kindness weakness?
The question gnawed at him with every step. He had given everything—his strength, his sanity, his soul—to heal a world that met him with betrayal.
A bitter laugh escaped his throat, ragged and hollow.
"What's the point?" he muttered to no one. "Why keep fighting when it only brings more pain?"
The trees offered no reply. The forest merely watched, still and indifferent.
He slumped against a gnarled tree, its bark digging into his back. The scar above his heart pulsed faintly, like it remembered her too.
We'll break together, Elira had said.
But she was gone.
And he was breaking alone.
For the first time, Caelen thought about letting go. Severing the curse. Turning his back on the pain and the prophecy alike. The idea wrapped around him like a cold cloak—soft, final, almost gentle.
But as his eyes fluttered shut, her face surfaced in the dark.
Elira. Fierce. Stubborn. Her fire never dimmed. Her belief in him never shaken.
Caelen's fingers curled into the moss. The curse flared against his spine, a protest—not pain, but memory.
"Not yet," he breathed. "I'll find her. I have to."
And the forest, at last, stirred around him—as if it had been waiting for those words.