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No renewal. No offer. No request to stay.

Torack hasn’t said a word about it. Not even a grunt of approval or a grunt of dismissal—which, let’s be honest, cover 90% of his emotional vocabulary.

So I’m packing.

Because I’m not the kind of girl who waits around to be dismissed. I’ve worked too hard, proven too much, to beg for scraps of belonging. I saw this coming. Of course I did.

And yet, here I am, blinking way too hard over a pair of rolled-up socks.

The camp is quieter than usual this morning. Not silent—never that. But muffled, like the forest itself knows something’s shifting.

The smell of warded firewood hangs in the air. Laughter drifts from the mess hall. Someone’s tuning a lute off-key near the dorms. It all feels so normal. Which makes it worse. Groth finds me hunched over a box of inventory ledgers in the storage tent, furrowed and flustered and pretending I’m just organizing.

“Morning, General,” he rumbles, arms crossed.

I give a half-smile. “Don’t call me that. I’m a civilian now.”

He grunts. “Bull.”

“I’m serious. My contract’s up.”

“You’re really gonna leave.”

“I’m not exactly being asked to stay.”

Groth steps into the tent. His bulk takes up half the space and all the air. “He’s an idiot.”

“I’m not doing this because of Torack.”

“Liar.”

I shut the box a little too fast. “It’s my job, Groth. It’s over.”

“Jobs can change.”

“Not when the person in charge doesn’t say a damn word.”

He watches me for a long moment. “You think he doesn’t want you here?”

I hesitate. “I think… he doesn’t know how to say it. If he does.”

“He knows.”

“Then why hasn’t he said anything?”

“Because he’s scared,” Groth says simply. “Because he lost too much before. Because letting you stay means admitting he wants something he doesn’t know how to keep.”

I swallow hard.

“He’ll let you walk away if that’s what you want,” Groth adds. “But not because he doesn’t care.” The portal stone hums beneath my hand.

One bag slung over my shoulder. One step away from disappearing.

My fingers hover over the sigil that would open the path back to the city. Back to job listings and coffee shops and tiny apartments with too much tile and not enough heart.

Then I hear it.

“JOOOOOLS!”