Page 77 of Habibi: Always and Forever

The wind hit the pigs first. Shields slammed back into their own faces with a metallic ring.

Weapons jerked sideways, wrenched from their grips.

The formation shattered like dry clay. Men staggered into one another, their boots skidding as the gale drove them back toward the walls they thought they protected.

Robin’s bow sang as an arrow leapt into the air we shared. It slipped through the gate’s bars like a whispered password. The accepting answer came at once as a banner tore free, the House’s crest twisting in the gust until its gold unraveled like a curse breaking.

Robin turned from the shot and caught my eye.

Around us, the world was chaos as banners snapped, pigs shouted, and stone groaned.

But between us, it was perfectly still. His mouth curved, not with victory, but with the quiet certainty of someone who knows they are exactly where they’re meant to be.

In the hush between our heartbeats, I knew it too.

The sight of him rooted me deeper than the land itself. This was why my magic no longer tore at my ribs, because there was nothing in me that needed to hold back from him.

The storm I breathed didn’t stop at the gates or walls. It slid through every gap, each arrow slit, every shutter, and even the tiniest cracks in the mortar. Curtains flew. Scrolls whipped off tables and burst apart into white streamers. Candle flames gasped before smoke curled in frantic spirals.

The land was awake now. My breath was in it, and the hill had no interest in keeping its stolen shape.

The pigs stumbled further back. Not into a new line, but toward the gate, retreating into the false promise of their own crumbling fortress. They couldn’t see it yet, but these walls were never meant to keep danger out; only to hold them in as willing prisoners.

The wolf in my shadow prowled forward, paws striking the iron in time with my steps.

Each carried the wind’s weight, each claw a piece of the gale made solid.

The bars yielded with breezy ease, falling away behind us as we stepped all the way into the courtyard.

The heart of their stronghold was now the center of our storm.

I let the next breath swell, not to shatter but to strip.

Robin was already there, close enough that the storm tangled in his hair.

His hand slid to the back of my neck, steadying me, grounding me, claiming me.

I leaned in, exhaling into the space between us.

My mouth found his, fierce and certain, as if the wind itself had been holding its breath for this.

The gale puffed out around us. Statues leaned away like an unwanted audience before toppling.

The carved crest above the hall doors split down the middle, stone groaning as the emblems slipped, striking the ground with a hollow ring.

Paint peeled from the courtyard walls in long-curling ribbons, mortar dust drifting down like pollen shaken loose.

Silk banners twisted into the mud until their colors ran.

The courtyard churned with guilt. Shadows clung to townsfolk’s boots and climbed their backs, reshaping into the blunt snouts and curling tails of pigs.

For a held breath, they stood in the fearful shapes they’d hidden behind laws and titles.

Keeping a kingdom always took more than the guards alone.

It needed those who filed the paperwork, whispered denouncements, and enforced quiet under smiling masks.

People who handed power the leash and called it peace.

It wasn’t my claws they feared, but the shape of me in their own minds. The Big Bad they’d blamed with every warning cry, now made flesh.

Their fear poured into the storm, thick and thunderous, until it pressed against their chests like a second heartbeat. A few clawed at their helmets as if that could strip the truth away. Others froze, eyes wide, not yet knowing if they were more afraid of me or of being seen.

Only then did I lift my gaze to the rampart.

The captain stood there, no orders left in him, his mouth open as the wind swallowed his words whole.

Beside him, the crier didn’t flinch. They still clutched their necklace like an entitlement, as if the storm could be outlasted by posture alone.

No words. No retreat. Just a gaze that refused to yield, as if they believed that silence made them safe.

They stayed exactly where they were. Not out of courage, but because change had never occurred to them.

Another breath was waiting in my bones. No more warning or reminder. Only ruin and return.

My shadow crouched low, as if the sun itself had bowed.

Claws sank deep into the soil, and we drew in a single breath together.

What filled my lungs was more than air, and it was the same breath that built the hill and carved its shape.

The wind was in the hill’s bones; the hill in the wind’s breath.

In their union, I could not find my own edges.

I felt it rise within me, slow and certain, the spine of the land arching with awareness, filling my mind.

I blew the breath out and returned to myself. The exhale ripped the roof tiles first, sending them off like scales from a fish, clattering into the courtyard in waves. Some shattering before impact, others carried whole into the air only to be dashed against the outer wall.

Only a handful of people still clung to the ramparts, their armor dull, their faces pale in the settling dust. The rest had been swallowed by the storm. The wind eased, but the air still carried the taste of timeless magic.

I looked up at them, and when I spoke, I didn’t need the wind to carry the message further. “You built your House on stolen breath,” I said, every syllable steady as a heartbeat. “And now we’ve taken it back.”

No one on the wall answered. The House’s silence held, heavier than any denial they could muster, and then, deep in the walls, stone cracked further like ice giving way.

The sound rippled up through the ramparts, and the last handful of men scrambled just as the battlement beneath them started to sag.

Robin’s hand found mine, pulling my attention toward him, not the ruin.

His grip was sure, his thumb brushing over the ridge of my knuckles as if the only thing worth holding onto in that moment was me.

Behind us, the wall gave a final groan and folded into itself, scattering stone like abandoned dice.

His fingers laced with mine like roots gripping the same earth. We stepped forward together, past the last of the fallen stone, into an open field. The wind had softened to a steady breath, warm against my skin as it carried the scent of rain nearby.

In a field of wildflowers, Robin’s forehead came to rest against mine, our breath mingling, still tasting faintly of the magic in the storm. His thumb traced the line of my jaw as if remembering it, as though each battle had only carved me closer to the shape he already knew by heart.

“You are the home I was hunting for,” he murmured.

I let my eyes close for a heartbeat, not from weariness, but because in this breath I held everything I had ever sought. And when I opened them again, he was still there—warm, certain, and unmovable as the land itself.

“A castle was never safety. This is .” I caught the edge of his cloak between my fingers, tugging him that last inch toward me. “There are no lies left to guard. We are home.”