Cyrus awoke to the soft glow of the lantern. Its warmth lingered on his skin like dawn after a long storm, though the ache in his body still pulsed with every breath. His chains lay coiled at his side, heavy as ever, yet lighter than the night before.
Hope sat nearby, lantern resting in her hands, its flame steady but small. She looked at him not as a savior might, but as one traveler would another—tired, worn, but still walking.
"You should not have survived," she said gently. "Wrath burns more than flesh. His fire sears the will."
Cyrus's lips curled faintly. "Perhaps he failed. Or perhaps my will was never worth burning."
Hope tilted her head, her expression neither pitying nor sharp. "No. You endure because sorrow does not fade—it lingers. That weight is your strength."
He turned from her, gaze fixed on the forest beyond. "Sorrow is a chain. It drags me down. What use is a strength that only cripples?"
The lantern's glow brightened, spilling gold across the bark of the trees. "Chains can bind, yes… but they can also hold together. When the world shatters, something must keep its pieces from drifting away."
Her words stirred something bitter and familiar in him. Once, long ago, he had believed in bonds strong enough to keep meaning whole. Yet those bonds had broken, leaving him cast from the Repository, left to wander with nothing but weight.
"You speak as though light alone can mend a world built on ruin," he muttered.
Hope did not flinch. "I don't claim I can mend it. Only that I will keep the flame alive, even when it seems laughable to do so. That is enough."
Cyrus looked at her then, at the fragile lantern held against the vastness of night. Fragile, yes. Foolish, perhaps. Yet even he could not deny that the flame had reached him, if only for a moment.
And as he rose, his chains dragging across the soil, he realized he would not leave her behind.
Not yet.