The forest swallowed Caelen in silence.
His footsteps stirred fallen leaves and memory, his cloak whispering against branches heavy with dew. The Weeping Blade hung at his side like a tether to a world he was trying to release—not from disdain or anger, but from the weight of too much love.
He hadn't gone far. Not really. But far enough to feel it—that dangerous, hollow ache that came when your soul unspooled behind you and you refused to look back.
Each time he breathed, he heard Elira's voice in the echo.
He had expected someone to follow. Rael, perhaps. Or Lira. But the only companion he allowed now was the burden he'd carried for so long it had become something like home.
It had rained. The canopy above wept quiet drops as the morning light filtered through. There was peace here—but not inside him.
He reached a glade he remembered, though he couldn't say when he'd last seen it. A grove he and Elira had once passed through during their earliest journey—a place where she'd laughed and spun in the wind, where he'd quietly wished to freeze time.
Now, it was quiet.
Caelen sat beneath a willow's curve, blade resting across his knees. The burn of the scar on his chest had dulled, but not disappeared. It was as if even the magic within him mourned.
His hands trembled.
He whispered to the trees. "Why is it, that when you finally believe you're enough for someone… the world shows you otherwise?"
The forest didn't answer, but something moved in the distance—light footsteps, hesitant, soft. Not Elira. Not yet.
Back at camp, Elira stood by the fire, eyes red-rimmed, shoulders squared but shaking. The fire's heat meant nothing. Her limbs felt hollow.
Rael hadn't spoken since the outburst. He sat on a log, eyes fixed on the dirt, guilt folding him inward.
"He was going to leave us," Elira whispered.
Rael looked up. "He thought he was the wound, Elira. Not the salve."
She turned on him, voice raw. "You shouldn't have said it like that. I trusted you."
Rael stood, shame flushing his face. "I didn't plan it. But he deserved to know. You both did. He was breaking apart over a lie that wasn't even real."
"You should have let me be the one to tell him," she said.
"I know," Rael said quietly. "But would you have?"
Elira looked away.
She didn't answer.
That night, Caelen remained beneath the willow. The stars broke through the canopy. He did not sleep. Instead, he carved something into the bark with his dagger—a name, unfinished.
"Elira."
He wanted to be angry. Wanted to scream, to curse whatever gods or echoes shaped this fate. But there was no space for rage in him anymore. Only the quiet ache of not being enough.
She deserved light. Rael made her laugh. Caelen… reminded her of pain.
He sighed. "Maybe this time… I am the one who has to walk away."
But even as he said it, the Weeping Blade pulsed once—just once.
As if disagreeing.
And somewhere in the dark, Elira rose from her bedroll, cloak already slung across her shoulders.
She couldn't let him vanish again.
Not like this.
Not when the only thing more unbearable than loving Caelen… was not having the chance to tell him again.