~ELOWEN'S POV~
The first breath I took was fire.
My lungs seized as I coughed, every inhale scraping down my throat like thorns. My body refused to move at first, every muscle raw and trembling.
It wasn't just the smoke, It was the rejection and the memory of him walking away.
I blinked and took in the unfamiliar surroundings. Wooden walls, blackened and scorched, leaned at awkward angles.
I was in a shed, half-burnt and reeking of ash. There were torn blankets below me and a bowl of water by my side.
Someone had dragged me out... But who?
I tried to sit up, and the pain screamed through my ribs. My wrists were bruised from the restraints as blood crusted along my temple, and I didn't know if the heat or the memory hurt more.
Fragments came back in flashes.
A blurry figure hands gripping under my arms, the heat of fire behind us and the scent of burnt fur. A voice I didn't recognize, speaking too low to make out as if chanting spells.
They'd brought me here, bandaged the worst of my wounds and hid me. But why?
The blanket fell from my shoulder, and the shed door was ajar, moonlight spilling through. I crawled toward it, dragging my weak limbs until I could peer outside.
Woods... very quiet.
I didn't know how far I was from Dravenmere, but I knew I wasn't in it anymore. The energy was different here as It hit me and my pulse picked up.
These woods bordered Morvain Pack--my old home and the pack that raised me, or claimed to. I backed away from the doorway and pressed a hand to my belly. My child and the only thing that mattered now.
Then a noise snapped through the trees and I went numb.
"Still no trail?"
"She was bleeding. The scent ends near the creek."
"Alpha Alaric said bring her back alive and If she fights, break her legs."
My body tensed, heartbeat hammering. They were close, Dravenmere patrols and Alaric sent them. They were tracking me like prey.
I couldn't afford to freeze.
Gripping the wall for balance, I forced myself to stand. Every step hurt but I couldn't wait to heal because I didn't trust whoever saved me, and I definitely didn't trust the men combing the forest.
I slipped out the back, heart thudding. The patrol was moving east and I limped west, deeper into the woods, away from familiar paths.
The cold bit through my clothes, but I welcomed it. At least it numbed the rest.
Somewhere between the thorns and uneven terrain, I recognized part of the landscape. A stream I used to wade through as a child. The dead tree shaped like a crooked finger.
I was on the fringes of Morvain but I couldn't let them know I was here.
I crawled into a hollow near the base of a gnarled tree, half-hidden beneath leaves and thorns. My body gave up and I collapsed inside, curling around the pain.
For a moment, I allowed myself to breathe. My head throbbed, fingers were caked with blood and dirt, and my skin peeled where the fire had touched it.
Alaric's face flashed in my mind again... the way he saw me and walked away to save Tazira. A sharp sob tore from my throat before I could stop it. I bit down on my hand to keep quiet, but it was too late.
A rustle suddenly came behind me--the snap of a twig. I stilled... someone was here and not Dravenmere.
The scent was different. Faint, but not foreign or hostile. It pulled at a part of me buried deep in childhood memories.
Then a soft thud — a body shifting behind me. I jerked upright, heart in my throat. I turned slowly, crawling halfway out of the hollow. A man stood at the edge of the clearing, dressed in rough clothes, and dirt-stained but didn't move closer.
"You're alive?" he growled, like he didn't believe it.
My mouth went dry that instant.
The wind blew and for the first time in days, I felt grounded, like I hadn't been abandoned by the entire world.
"…Sylion?" The name slipped out of my lips.
I hadn't said it aloud in years because I barely remembered how it felt to speak it, like it might crumble if I tried. But now, here he was, standing before me in the woods like time hadn't swallowed him whole.
He didn't move closer or speak again. Just stood there, tall, with that same sharp focus in his eyes that had once made me feel like nothing in the world could touch me.
"I thought you were dead," I whispered, voice hoarse.
"I was," he mumbled softly, stepping out of the shadows. "At least… to the world."
I stared at him, and he was older, broader, chestnut hair shorter than I remembered, but it was him. The boy who used to sneak dried fruit to me behind the granary.
The one who bled with me when I was cast out and the only one who didn't look away when my name was erased from my adoptive family's lips.
"You vanished after the massacre," I uttered.
"And you disappeared before that," he replied. "I searched for you, Elowen… until I saw who you married."
My stomach tensed. I stepped back instinctively, but my knees buckled slightly and I had to brace against a tree. He noticed, eyes flicking to the burn across my shoulder and the dried blood at my side.
His voice dropped lower, "You're hurt."
Sylion words made something sting deep in my chest. The last time someone had said that to me, I believed them. I believed a lot of things back then.
"Let..." he hesitated. "...let me take you somewhere safe. You're bleeding through your bandages."
"mm. I don't even know whose territory this is," I muttered.
"You're standing in Tharros now... Come on let go."
I almost didn't go. But I was exhausted, shivering, and barely holding myself together. And if Dravenmere patrols were out here, I couldn't afford to collapse.
So I followed...