Fara didn't move.
She stood with her back to Goss, fingers still resting on the stone. Her posture was too still, too controlled. Like something tightly coiled just beneath her skin. The wind stirred behind her, rustling the leaves, but she didn't shift. Didn't blink. Her thumb brushed the name again: Thomund.
It was crudely etched. Not artful. Not ceremonial. Just deep enough to hold in stone. As if someone had scratched it out not because they wanted to remember, but because they couldn't let it be forgotten.
"You're not supposed to be here," she thought. "You were strong. You never lost."
Her throat burned. The ground felt uneven beneath her feet.
She remembered him hammering bark slats into place above their porch, swearing every time the nails bent. She remembered his rough hands guiding hers around a knife handle. The rhythm of his laugh when she caught a frog with her bare hands. He'd told her stories about walls that never broke, and roots that never gave way.
She had always believed him.
A step behind her. Goss. She hadn't heard him arrive, but the sound of shifting weight on wet soil gave him away.
"Fara," he said, voice low, cautious. "I… I didn't know."
She turned.
Not fast, not dramatic. But her expression had changed. Her mouth was tight. Her eyes were glassy but dry, tension gathering like stormclouds behind them.
"You knew him," she said. Not a question.
Goss hesitated. "Yes."
"You knew him and you didn't tell me."
"I didn't realise until just now," he said, taking a step forward. "Not until you said something. Until I saw, "
"You saw me building next to a shrine with his name on it." Her voice rose, sharp as flint. "You saw me eating, and sleeping ten metres from a stone that says Thomund and you didn't say anything?"
"I didn't know you were his daughter," Goss said, firmer now. "I didn't put it together."
"But you knew him."
"I did."
"Then say something about him!" she snapped. "Say who he was! Don't just stand there like it doesn't matter."
Goss flinched but didn't move. "He was brave. Stubborn. Kept his promises even when they hurt. He used to… he used to share whatever he had with the others, even when he hadn't eaten."
Fara's voice cracked. "You didn't think I'd want to know that?"
"I didn't think," he admitted. "I was too slow."
"He built our house with his hands. He sang badly when he worked. He used to carry me over streambeds in the spring, just so my boots wouldn't get wet. That's who he was. That's who he was!"
She stepped forward suddenly, fists clenched. "You let me talk about him like he was alive."
"I know."
"You just nodded. Smiled. Lied."
"I didn't mean to," Goss said. "Fara, "
"I don't want your apology," she shouted. "I want to have found out a different way. I want to have known before I saw it in stone."
Behind her, there was a quiet shift of feet.
Raif.
He stood just beyond the trees, caught in the edge of light, posture still but alert. One hand rested on the hilt of his blade, not out of threat, but out of grounding. His brows were drawn, jaw locked. He'd been listening.
Fara's head snapped toward him. Her breath hitched, and for a heartbeat her rage turned to something like betrayal.
"You knew, didn't you?" she spat.
Raif stepped forward, slow and steady. "We didn't."
She took a step toward him, hands trembling now, voice sharp. "Don't lie to me. You've been leading them. You knew. You had to know."
"We didn't," Raif repeated. "None of us put it together until just now. We didn't know of Thomund's past."
"But you let me walk past this every day. You watched me work, eat, sleep by a grave. My father's grave."
His face twitched. "I didn't know."
"That doesn't change what it felt like," she said, her voice cracking. "Do you know how many times I walked past here and didn't even look?"
Fara's chest heaved. She looked away, then back. "What else haven't you told me? What else are you keeping?"
"We're not keeping anything," Raif said, gently but firmly. "This place, this jungle, it doesn't give us time to pause. But we've never hidden anything from you."
She scoffed. "No? Then tell me how he died. Tell me exactly."
Raif nodded once. "Naera and Thomund were ambushed in the eastern jungle. A bark wolf, a big one. They fought it, and Thomund… he wouldn't leave, he was protecting Naera. He told us to carry the corpse back. He thought the hide and meat could help the camp. We wanted to carry him back too, but he, "
He stopped. Swallowed.
"He stayed behind. We only got the wolf because of him."
Fara stared at him. "So you left him to die."
Raif met her gaze without flinching. "He made the call. We didn't abandon him. We obeyed his last order."
Her face twisted. "That sounds like something you say to sleep at night."
Raif didn't respond immediately. His silence was heavier than denial.
Behind them, Goss stepped forward again, more cautiously this time. "Fara… your father wasn't the kind of man who expected a monument. He lived to protect others. That's what he did until the very end. I'm sorry. I knew of you, but didn't know you personally."
Fara spun on him, eyes blazing. "And what about me? Was I part of 'others'? Was I part of the people he was protecting?"
"Yes," Goss said without hesitation. "I think you always were. Even if you weren't here yet."
She blinked rapidly. Her fists loosened, then tightened again. "He wouldn't have left me behind."
"No," Raif said quietly. "But he would've sent you away if it meant you'd live."
Fara's shoulders heaved. Her breathing was ragged now, not from shouting, but from the sheer force of holding it all in.
She knelt again, touched the stone. Her fingers pressed hard against the name.
"I never got to say goodbye," she whispered. "I never even knew he was gone."
Raif crouched nearby, not too close. "Neither did we."
"I would've fought with him," she said. "I would've stood beside him."
"I know," Goss murmured. "And he would've never let you."
Silence again.
Fara finally stood, slower this time. Her face was raw, not red, not streaked with tears, but stripped of all mask.
"I need air," she said. "I need to move."
She turned before either of them could speak again and stepped into the trees.
Raif straightened, rubbing a thumb against his palm like he needed to feel something solid.
"She's like him," Goss said behind him. "More than I realised."
Raif nodded. "She's fire in bark skin. And that fire's hurting."
Night came and the fire crackled low, and the heat from it barely pushed back the chill in the air. Raif sat across from Goss, his hands held out to the faint warmth. Between them, a wooden bowl of boiled root and jungle greens sat mostly untouched.
Neither had spoken in a while.
It was Goss who broke the silence, voice low. "I should've seen it sooner. Should've put it together. Her eyes… her stance. All of it. But I didn't."
Raif didn't look up right away. "None of us did."
"I talked to her about Thomund like he was a name in a story," Goss said. "Not someone who raised her. I didn't even ask. Didn't think to ask. And now, " He shook his head. "Now she'll never get that back."
Raif finally met his eyes. "You're not the only one who carries that weight."
Goss stared into the flames. "It's different when the name's carved. You see it, and suddenly all the little moments you let pass… they turn into regrets."
Raif nodded slowly. "I used to think silence was mercy. That if we didn't speak about the losses, maybe they wouldn't hold as tight. But silence isn't mercy. It's memory without shape. It rots instead of settles."
Goss's mouth tightened. "She was right to be angry."
They sat a while longer.
The fire popped. Somewhere deeper in the jungle, a night bird called.
"Do you think she'll come back?" Goss asked.
Raif leaned back slightly, resting his hands in his lap. "She'll come back when she's ready. Just make sure we're here when she does."
The fire popped again, the sound sharp in the stillness. For a while, neither man moved. Raif stared into the flames, jaw tense. Goss leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, not for warmth but restlessness.
"I keep thinking," Goss murmured, "what if we'd stopped her before she got to the shrine? Would it have made a difference?"
Raif shook his head. "She would've found it. If not today, then tomorrow. And it would've hurt either way."
Goss drew a circle in the dirt with a twig. "It's strange. Thomund was always so solid. Like if he was nearby, you'd be all right. But I never thought to ask who he was before the jungle. I only knew him for a short time. That time was... Memorable."
"He didn't talk about it," Raif said. "He was like that. He'd watch over people, but never let them get too close."
"Except Naera."
Raif nodded. "She got in."
The fire dimmed. Sparks drifted up into the branches, disappearing.
"I wonder what he'd say if he saw her now," Goss whispered.
"He'd be proud," Raif said. "And worried. Because that's what fathers do."
There was a long pause.
"She's more like him than I realised," Goss said. "Not just the strength. The way she holds everything in until it breaks loose."
Raif leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "He taught us how to survive. She's going to teach us how to carry it."
Goss chuckled, but it was a sad sound. "You're getting too good at saying the right thing."
Raif gave him a sidelong look. "That's because I'm still trying to believe it myself."
A faint breeze stirred the leaves overhead. The jungle, for once, was quiet.
"We hold on," Goss finished.
Raif offered a hand, pulling Goss to his feet. They doused the edge of the fire with a splash of water from the gourd.
The camp behind them was still. The night wasn't safe, not truly. But for now, it was enough.
They left the firepit together in silence, two silhouettes fading into the flickering dark, where grief hadn't finished its work, and neither had they.