The firelight still danced on the bark of the old tree, casting flickering shadows across the forest clearing where their voices had just fallen silent. Eira sat very still, her fingers curled around the soft edges of the pine-needle blanket Caelum had pulled over her shoulders. His warmth lingered on the fabric, but he now stood at the edge of the glade, staring into the trees as if they might answer all the questions they hadn't dared to ask.
The air between them was no longer filled with the scent of smoke and pine, but of something heavier—something that pulsed with the ache of everything unsaid.
"I shouldn't have kissed you," Eira said softly, her voice barely louder than the whispering wind.
Caelum didn't turn around.
"Then why did you?" he asked.
She closed her eyes. "Because I wanted to remember what it felt like to believe in us. Even if it's just a memory now."
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it was filled with shared history, with footsteps in soft grass, with the echo of laughter by moonlight. Eira remembered the way they used to walk side by side, the way his hand would brush against hers without thinking, like their hearts had been tied together without permission.
But something had changed. Not suddenly, but like a slow unraveling—threads of trust pulled loose by secrets and silences.
Caelum finally turned to face her. His silver eyes caught the firelight in a way that made them look like storm clouds holding back rain. "Do you think it's all just a memory now?" he asked.
Eira didn't answer right away. Her heart beat too loudly for her to trust her voice. She looked down at her hands, then at the hollow stone still tied to the red ribbon around her neck. "I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe... maybe we're something that happened between magic and goodbye."
He stepped closer, just enough that she could hear the soft crunch of twigs beneath his boots. "That's not all we are," he said. "We're more than just something that happened."
Eira looked up. "Then what are we?"
He didn't answer. Not with words.
Instead, he knelt beside her and took her hand—not like someone trying to reclaim something, but like someone finally willing to carry the weight of it. His fingers trembled slightly, but he didn't let go.
"There's an echo," he said, his voice rough. "Every time I think I've moved on, I hear your voice again. Every time I try to forget, I see your shadow beside me. It's like you're stitched into every memory I have."
Her throat tightened. "And does it hurt?"
He smiled, but it was the kind that came with wet eyes. "Sometimes. But mostly... it just reminds me that I felt something real."
They stayed like that, beneath the branches, while the fire dwindled into soft embers. Around them, the forest was quiet, but not asleep. A wind stirred the trees, carrying with it the scent of rain from far away—like the earth itself was listening.
"I didn't mean to disappear," Eira said at last. "I was scared. Everything felt like it was falling apart, and I didn't want you to see me break."
"I would have stayed," he said. "Even if you shattered."
Tears slipped silently down her cheeks. "I'm still broken."
"Then let me help you heal."
It was the kind of promise that didn't need grand gestures or magic. Just the steady presence of someone who meant it. And in that moment, something inside Eira shifted—not healed, not whole, but softened. Like the first light of dawn after too many nights of waiting.
She leaned into him, and he didn't flinch. His arms came around her gently, like he'd been holding that shape in his heart for a long time.
They didn't speak again for a while. The forest held them close, wrapping them in its hush, as if even the trees knew this was something sacred.
When she finally pulled back, her voice was steadier. "Do you still have the letter?"
He nodded and pulled it from inside his coat. The edges were worn, and the ink had bled in some places. "I never read it."
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid it would be the end."
She reached for it, but he closed his fingers around hers. "Read it to me," he said. "Now."
Her hands trembled as she unfolded the paper. She hadn't looked at it since the day she wrote it, when everything inside her had felt like it was crumbling.
She began, voice soft but clear:
"Dear Caelum,
If you're reading this, it means I've left before I could say goodbye. I'm sorry. I never wanted to be the girl who vanished. I never wanted you to be the boy waiting for answers."
Caelum closed his eyes as she read.
"I'm scared of what I've become. The magic in me isn't gentle anymore. It hurts. It twists, and sometimes it feels like I'm losing who I am. I didn't want to bring that darkness to you."
Eira's voice cracked, but she kept going.
"You are the brightest thing that ever happened to me, and maybe that's why I had to go—because I didn't want to dim you. I wanted to protect the you that laughed under the stars and carved promises into tree trunks. But I know now... maybe you would've stayed. Maybe we were stronger than I believed. If this is the end, then let it be the soft kind. The kind that echoes with love instead of silence."
She looked up. Caelum's eyes shimmered, but his smile was gentle.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For loving me even when it hurt."
The night deepened around them, but for the first time in a long while, it didn't feel lonely. There were no grand declarations, no fireworks, just the quiet heartbeat of something finding its way back to life.
Eira placed the letter back into his hands. "Keep it," she said. "Not as a goodbye, but as a beginning."
And Caelum nodded, slipping it into his pocket like something precious.
As they sat there beneath the firelight tree, listening to the wind carry the echoes of their hearts, it felt like something had changed. Not everything. But enough.
Enough to begin again.