rive with a fan

gal glow against the encroaching grey. I awoke not wit

ng beast of the night, but a deep, pervasive ache that had s

my stomach was banked, contained beneath the tight band

yellow, each one a throbbing note. But

way you might reach for a missing

. It wasn't empty. Empty would ha

nnatural stillness. There was no presence, no familiar,

a presence itself. A hollowing. A soft sound,

earth wall. He was not looking at me, but at a small, steady fla

ce of nature and more like a man, though a man

ou are still with us." His voice was a low rumble in the quiet space. It didn't startle me. I

rt. A rough, dry click was all that eme

nd brought to me. "Slowly," he instructed, slidi

g like birch. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. I took two small, ca

how to hunger," he said, returning to his place by th

a long time. The den was peaceful, but my mind was a

vian's hand. The taunting curl of her lip. The d

d. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the memori

es. He was watching me now, his gaze holding mine with that unsettling, direct f

ody remember how to be alive." "It remembers how

to," he replie

is a me

That one will take longer to understand." The mention of the silence made it swell, fi

el anything there. It's just gone." A sob th

er there. How is that possible?" Kael poked at the

s forged with an intention, a purpose. In the hands of a petty

de you powerful, that connected you to your future, and erase it so completely you would

n be faced." His words were like stones dropped into the stagnant

t was a crime scene. The silence wa

fessed, the admission feeling both terrif

o survived the blad

the one wh

who did not di

now. It is enough." Was

s nothing. As if reading the doubt on my

arth, these roots.

emembe

ot what they were. But they are not nothing.

" The philosophy was too large for my shattered mind to hold. "What ha

He rose to his feet in one smooth motion.

ut falling, we will begin the other work." "What other work?" He paused a

ws in soil that has been burned." His gaze fell on me, heavy and full of

disappeared into the growing light, leaving me alone wit

w, pain-drugged haze. Kael returned wit

areful. It was savory and rich, warming me f

ugh I always felt his presence nearby, a steady vibration in t

ied in my throat, of Vivian's laughter echoing in the hollow chamber of m

It felt like being buried alive in my own skin. Driven by a need to

athed through it, gritting my teeth against the pull in my stomach.

a long time, gathering the courage of a newborn foal. Then, u

ng to the wall, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. But I was

I made it the short distance to the den's entra

t cupped in the palm of the mountains. A crystal-clear stream, the same one I had tried to reach

t wilderness. This was the heart of it. A place that had never kn

stream, sat Kael. He was shirtless

But it was not his form that held my gaze. Around him,

hawk circled lower than it ever would near people, then la

uiet, interconnected energy. He was

he lifted a hand, and a sparrow, bold as brass, flitted dow

of shifting. This was communion. This was what I

r than myself. The bond that tied me to the moon

n had sliced it. The loss that washed over me then was so tot

owed so effortlessly around Kael. He turned his head, as if sensing t

, my observation. In that look, there was no pity. There was, instead, a stark offering.

d down to sit in the entrance of the den, my back

llow. I was adrift. But I

first step, it seemed, was not toward healing, but

t life that persisted just