They marched at dusk.
The wounded were carried. The children were hidden in the center of the column. The warriors walked the edges, watching for threats. They moved slowly, painfully, but they moved.
Kaelen walked at the front, his eyes on the distant mountains. He didn't look back at the ocean. Couldn't. The grief for Ash was a physical weight in his chest, dragging him down with every step.
Seri walked beside him. She didn't speak, didn't touch, just matched his pace and stayed close. That was enough.
The first night was hard. The second was harder. By the third, they had left the coast behind, entered the foothills, begun the long climb toward safety.
On the fourth night, Kaelen stopped.
"What is it?" Seri asked.
He pointed. Ahead, in the darkness, a light glowed. Faint, pulsing, familiar.
"The Tree of Voices," he whispered. "A new one. Growing."
They approached slowly, reverently. The tree was young—barely more than a sapling—but already its tendrils glowed with the light of Eyva. Already it hummed with the memory of everything that had been lost.
Kaelen reached out and touched it.
Images flooded his mind. Anya, smiling. Tarsem, laughing. Ash, flying. The old forest, alive and beautiful. And beneath it all, a feeling—a promise—that this was not the end. That nothing was ever truly lost. That Eyva remembered, and Eyva would wait.
He pulled back, tears streaming down his face.
"She's here," he said. "They're all here. Anya. Tarsem. Ash. Everyone."
Seri touched the tree. When she opened her eyes, she was crying too.
"We carry them with us," she said. "Always."