Dawn arrived without color.
Fog hung low over Oakhaven like something left unsaid. The wooden rooftops appeared only as faint silhouettes, and dew clung coldly to fences, leaves, and the window of Sienna's room. She had awakened before the light fully broke, yet she did not rise at once. Instead, she sat at the edge of her bed, her bare feet resting against the cold wooden floor, her hands still upon the thin blanket her mother had mended years ago.
Today was not merely a departure.
It was a farewell.
Sienna turned toward the window. Shadow's Edge stood like a vast black line beyond the fog. The mountain did not rise sharply or dramatically as it did in adventure tales. It simply existed—and perhaps that was what made it feel so heavy.
Shadow's Edge was not a single peak but an entire domain: dense lower forests, the northern lake veiled in endless mist, stone valleys shaped like labyrinths, and cliffs without fixed paths where the weather shifted before clouds could even be seen forming.
Two months, Kaelen had said.
Not to conquer the summit—but to move through its territory.
They would not be able to carry everything they needed. They would have to learn to live within it.
---
Below, in the yard, wood knocked softly in steady rhythm.
Kaelen was already preparing. He had laid out the entire contents of Sienna's pack over a cloth: dried bread, smoked meat, two water skins, bandages, a small knife, flint, spare clothing.
He was not organizing.
He was reducing.
"This is too heavy," Kaelen said firmly when Sienna stopped midway down the stairs.
He lifted the pack with one hand, as though he already knew the weight her smaller frame could endure for weeks.
"How much?" he asked.
Sienna stepped closer and traced letters against her palm.
I C A N.
Kaelen read the words and remained silent for a moment. Then he began transferring items without asking permission. One water skin. Half the smoked meat. The spare knife. Extra salt.
Each item moved into his own pack.
His motions were efficient. The heavier weight was positioned near the center of his back for balance, the straps secured with knots that could be undone in a single pull.
"This isn't about what you can carry," he said at last. "It's about the second week. We only bring enough for ten days. After that, we find what we need."
He pulled out two thin wire snares, a collapsible shortbow, and a hunting knife with a dark handle.
"At the lake, we fish. In the forest, we set traps. We refill water. We do not carry the world on our backs."
---
Breakfast passed in silence, but it was not uncomfortable.
Grandmother Celia noticed how Kaelen's pack now carried far more than before, lightening her granddaughter's burden. She said nothing.
After the meal, she led Sienna into the kitchen and opened the lowest drawer. A folded white cloth was drawn out slowly, revealing a deep blue scarf that sent Sienna's memories rushing backward.
She remembered her mother standing in falling snow, that same scarf wrapped around her neck, laughing as Sienna tried to catch flakes in her hands.
"The sky before a storm," her mother had once said. "It is a color that is not afraid."
Grandmother Celia wrapped the scarf gently around Sienna's neck. Her fingers lingered at the rough stitching along one corner.
"Your mother repaired it herself. She never threw something away just because it was broken," she whispered. "Do not return because you are afraid, Sienna. Return because you choose to."
Their embrace lasted long—not tearful, but full of a release long held back.
---
Outside the house, Kaelen froze for a brief second when he saw the scarf.
His gaze fixed on the uneven stitching in the corner. Quick stitches. The kind made by someone who did not wish to lose something… but feared they might anyway.
His hand tightened before he realized it.
Grandmother Celia noticed.
"You look like someone who has lost," she said quietly.
Kaelen turned his face toward the distant weather. "Not everything lost wishes to be found."
"Not everything found wishes to be left behind," she replied.
A thin silence settled between them. No promise was demanded, yet the weight of trust felt heavier than any pack.
---
Their first steps away from the village were marked only by the crunch of gravel beneath their boots.
Kaelen walked slightly ahead, reading the ground, avoiding animal trails, reminding Sienna to keep her rhythm steady. He was always half a step more alert—his hand quick to steady her elbow when she nearly caught her foot on a root, or to move a branch aside without breaking stride.
At the first river crossing, where the current ran strong, he helped her balance.
"Watch the current, not the surface," he instructed briefly.
Afterward, he checked her boots to ensure they remained dry, knowing blisters in the second week could mean disaster.
---
By late afternoon, they set camp on higher ground, away from deer trails. Kaelen placed snares before lighting a small fire. When he sat, he faced the darkness of the forest rather than the flames—an instinct of survival too deeply rooted to unlearn.
As the fire crackled, memory returned to him: snow, shouting, a hand slipping from his grasp.
His gaze drifted again to the rough stitching on Sienna's scarf. He knew that pattern well.
He could have continued walking yesterday. He could have remained what he had always been—a wanderer without direction.
But he chose to stay.
Why?
Because he was tired of walking alone?
He did not know.
He only knew that this time, he could not afford to be late again.
"We rise before the sun," he said.
Sienna traced a single word across her palm.
T O G E T H E R.
Kaelen read it.
For the first time in a long while, he did not feel the urge to leave.
Back in Oakhaven, Grandmother Celia stood watching the fog slowly lift, allowing her granddaughter to follow her own path.
"I am not entrusting her to you," she murmured to the wind. "I am entrusting the path to her."
The journey had only just begun.
And the two months ahead felt like an entirely new life.