Page 154

The question gnaws at me, circling in endless loops until exhaustion pulls me under.

My dreams are fractured. Shadows and light, coiling and twisting in patterns that almost make sense … until they don’t. Until they dissolve into chaos.

I wake in the night, disoriented.Cold.

The mist has thickened even more, swallowing the camp in a dense veil. Shapes blur at the edge of my vision, shifting like phantoms. Most of the group is asleep, their breathing quiet beneath the weight of the fog. Two figures keep watch at the perimeter, dark silhouettes barely visible through the haze.

Sleep won’t come back. Too many thoughts being loud in my head. Flashes of silver light, the way the bandit looked at me, the bodies in the clearing.

Wrapping my blanket tighter around my shoulders, I move toward the edge of the camp to where the more familiar of the sentries is. Sacha sits alone on a fallen log, his figure half-lost in the mist. He doesn’t turn, but his voice reaches me quietly.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Too much in my head.”

I lower myself beside him, the cold seeping through the fabric of my clothes. I sit close enough that the edge of his cloak brushes my arm. The mist moves, curling around us, occasionally parting to reveal glimpses of stars before swallowing them again.

“Are you worried? About tomorrow?”

“Not worried, but concerned about uncontrollable variables. Ashenvale will have changed in my absence.”

I watch the shifting mist, the way it looks like it’s breathing with the way it moves. “When we get there … when you find your ring … what happens then?”

He turns slightly, his face half-hidden in the dark. The space between us feels even smaller now, like the mist has pressed us closer together.

“What happened today, the merchants and bandits recognizing me, that changes my timeline. Word will spread faster than anticipated.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? For them to know you’re back?”

“Eventually. But timing matters. The Authority will intensify their hunt for me once confirmed word of sightings reaches them.”

I take in a deep breath, then ask the question that’s been lurking in the back of my mind. “And me? What happens to me after Ashenvale?”

I’ve asked before, but after today, after the bandit’s words, the silver light, the way they looked at me, it feels different.

The mist curls between us, shifting into shapes I can’t quite define before fading again.

“We continue trying to understand your connection to this world,” he says at last. In the mist, his profile seems more softened, more human. His leg brushes against mine, a quiet point of contact neither of us moves to break. “To understand what you are to Meridian, and what Meridian is to you.”

“That’s not really an answer.” I wrap my arms around myself, fighting off the night’s chill.

“But it’s the only one I have.” He pauses. “For now.”

His honesty surprises me. No carefully phrased response designed to manipulate or control, just an admission of uncertainty. From a man who calculates every word, every action, this vulnerability feels like a gift more precious than any reassurance could be.

We sit in silence for a while, watching the mist form patterns. Sometimes they resemble figures and shapes that dance just at the edge of recognition before dissolving again.

“You should sleep. Tomorrow is going to require full attention.” His voice carries a note of concern that wasn’t there before. Before the bandits. Before they called me the one with stars in my eyes.

I nod, and place my hands on the log to push myself up. But before I can, his hand moves, catching my wrist with a touch so gentle it sends a shock through me.

My head turns, to find him looking at me, the mist flooding thick around us, blurring the world to nothing but him, and me, and this fragile space between.

His hand moves, lifting, until the back of his fingers brush my jaw. A careful touch, then, very slowly, his palm cradles my cheek.

He tilts my face toward him, and the air stills in my lungs. He’s so close that I can feel his breath against my lips. So close that if either of us moved even a fraction more, our mouths would touch.

But hedoesn’tmove. He holds the moment in that unbearable space between almost and never.