Page 105 of Storm of Stars

Zaffir’s gaze found mine, and for a moment, everything else faded. His golden eyes caught the light just right, still burning with that quiet fire I first saw the day we met. But now, there was something deeper behind them. Time. Trust. Truth. He taught me how to loosen my grip on certainty, how to surrender to the unknown without losing myself. How to evolve, to stay curious, to never settle for the world as it is just because it's familiar. With him, I learned that growth is not a destination, it’s a choice you make every single day.

“With moss as my carpet and stars as my guide,

I walk with the moon always at my side.”

We were older now. Time had wrapped itself around us slowly, like ivy creeping up old stone, softening the cracks without erasing them. The sharp edges we once carried, carved by fear, by control, by the constant, bone-deep need to survive, hadn’t disappeared. They still existed in the quiet moments, in the shadows of our memories, in the way we sometimes startled at loud noises or held our breath at bad news. But they didn’t cut like they used to.

Those edges had dulled with every year that passed, softened by laughter, by healing, by love. But still, on some days, they flared. Old pain doesn’t vanish. It waits. It pulses beneath the skin like a phantom limb, reminding us of who we were and how far we’d come. A sound, a smell, a moment too much like the past could bring it back. We carried our scars in invisible places. We always would.

And yet, we were not broken. Just weathered. Smoothed by time, bonded by shared history.

But the love between us? It only deepened. Rooted. Like the Wilds themselves. Built from a thousand moments, battles and belly laughs, late nights and long silences, grief and grace, holding on and letting go. And through it all, we remained. Still singing. Still choosing each other. Still standing.

I looked at each of them—my Wildguard. My loves. My life.

And I felt it, deep in my bones.Thiswas what we bled for.Thiswas what we built.

Thiswas everything.

“No need for a map, no need to know?—

I’m home in the place where the wild things grow.”