Alaric
She hadn't moved in nearly an hour.
The runes had faded.
The blood had dried.
But still… her eyes remained closed.
Alaric sat with his back against the cold den wall, knees drawn up, boots planted, and Isolde folded into his arms like a fallen star. She was too still, her weight curled against him as if she'd become part of the forest itself—something sacred and spent.
Her breath came slow now—no longer ragged, but distant. As though she were breathing somewhere far beyond this place. Somewhere he couldn't follow.
Not yet.
He reached up and brushed her hair back from her face, smoothing away the strands clinging to her temple. It was still wild from the wind and magic—streaked with ash, tangled with moss, the braid long since come undone.
He'd held her like this before.
Not in this lifetime.
But his body remembered. It wasn't thought, or knowledge—it was instinct, a deep, aching pull in his bones. A familiarity that settled into him like breath into lungs. Like the scent of her hair—earth and smoke and something else, something light and aching.
He didn't know when. Or who he'd been. Only that every time this moment had played out—every shadowed echo he couldn't name—it had ended with her slipping away.
Not this time.
Not if he could help it.
And gods help him, the longer she was near, the more it dulled the edge of the curse that had plagued him for as long as he could remember. Like touching her skin wove him back into the world. Like her presence was the only thing keeping the rot out of his soul.
Isolde
She woke with the taste of iron on her tongue and the scent of moss in her hair.
For a breathless moment, she thought the dream still had her—the ache in her chest too deep, too bright to be real. But then came the warmth. The pressure. The sound of him—his heart, slow and steady, drumming beneath her ear like a rhythm she'd always known.
Alaric.
She inhaled sharply.
He smelled like honeysuckle and frost. Like a storm just passed, and spring pushing its way through the thaw.
Home.
He felt her stir.
His arms tightened instantly, cradling her against him in that quiet, fierce way of his—half protection, half prayer. Every muscle in him went still, not with fear, but with focus. Readiness. As though if anything tried to take her from him, it would bleed first.
"You're here," he murmured, rough with relief.
"I'm here," she whispered.
It was all she could manage.
And for a time, it was enough.
She stayed pressed to him, her cheek against the warm rise of his chest, listening to the rhythm of his breath. Safe. Warm. Real. And yet—not unchanged.
Because she could still feel it.
The grove. The howl. The vines threading around her ankles. The silver thread that had burned into her chest and bound her to something old and grieving and alive.
The Moon hadn't given her comfort.
Only a name.A legacy.And a burden.
Alaric
She shifted in his arms, slowly, like someone coming back to their body by degrees.
He didn't speak. Didn't press. But he watched her carefully.
And when she finally looked up at him, something inside him stilled.
Her eyes were still green. Still hers.
But they had changed.
There was a wildness in them now. A clarity. Like someone who had seen their own death—and chosen to walk toward it anyway.
He brushed a bit of soot from her jaw and tucked her hair back behind her ear, fingers lingering. "What did you see?"
She swallowed.
"My past," she rasped.
A beat.
"And my task."
Isolde
She sat up slowly, knees curled to her chest, arms wrapped around them to hide the tremble in her fingers.
Alaric stayed close—didn't crowd her, didn't pull away. Just… stayed. Still and sure, like an anchor in the shifting ashlight of morning.
"I saw the grove," she said quietly. "The first one. The one my family was meant to guard. It was real."
She closed her eyes.
"I grew up thinking it was just a story. A myth whispered in bedtime tales about Silvanne blood and the forest's heart. But it was real. It is real. And it's breaking."
Alaric didn't speak, but she felt him listening. Felt his focus wrap around her like a shield.
"I saw what happened to it. Who betrayed it. A Silvanne. One of mine."
Her voice cracked. "She tried to steal its power. Broke a vow she was never meant to make. And now the grove remembers."
Alaric exhaled slowly, the sound almost a growl.
"And you?" he asked softly. "What are you now?"
She looked at him then, full of something fierce and sorrowful.
"I'm the last thread," she said. "The only one left to tie it shut."
Alaric
He should've felt afraid.
He didn't.
He felt something slot into place. Like the jagged shape of his curse, her magic, the rot in the woods—it all finally fit. Not fixed. But known.
He reached for her hand.
"I'll help you," he said.
She blinked.
Then—without hesitation—she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his.
Not a question. Not even a promise.
A declaration.
Her kiss was wildfire and lightning, heat and ache and memory. It didn't ask. It claimed. Like she'd done this a hundred times before and refused to die without doing it again.
His hand cupped the side of her jaw, holding her steady.
And for a moment—just one—the world went quiet.
When they parted, she was breathless.
So was he.
"Thank you," she whispered.
And somewhere in the trees beyond, a crow took flight.
Isolde sat back, eyes still fixed on him. But her hand drifted—slowly, unconsciously—to the center of her chest.
Where the silver thread had burned into her in the dream, her skin still tingled, faintly warm beneath the torn fabric.
She pressed her palm there, as if trying to feel its shape. As if some part of her had been marked in a language only the land could read.
Alaric noticed.
His voice was low. Careful.
"Does it hurt?"
She shook her head, then whispered:
"No. But it's still there."
And in the silence that followed, the morning wind stirred the ashes around them like breath.