The mornings came gentler now.

Mist curled low across the fields, softening the edges of the world. Birds nested in the rafters of the widow’s cabin. Their faint coos stirred Reith awake before the light had fully broken the horizon.

She rose to the creak of old floorboards and the smell of smoke as Soran tended the fire.

Some days, she found him outside instead, splitting logs. Sleeves rolled. Breath clouding in the pale dawn air.

He worked in silence, but never coldly. Every motion was deliberate. Each swing of the axe measured, as though the world itself would fracture if he lost control.

Reith learned his rhythms.

The way he brushed dust from his palms before sitting. The way he drank water, never from the rim but from the side. The way his gaze lingered at the edge of things—the treeline, the roof beam, the horizon—as if danger was always waiting just beyond reach.

And yet, sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t looking, his gaze lingered on her instead.

Once, when she was pulling weeds, hair falling loose around her face, she felt his eyes on her. A strange heat bloomed across her skin. A shiver despite the sun. She didn’t look up. Didn’t dare. But her hands trembled as she reached for the next root.

They never spoke of it.

Not of the touches, either. His hand steadying her elbow when she stumbled in the field. Her fingers brushing the back of his as she passed him bread. The warmth of his shoulder, pressed against hers at night, when neither of them moved away.

It was unspoken. But it was there.

One night, the wind howled fierce against the roof. The shutters rattled. The fire guttered low. Shadows spilled across the floor like restless spirits.

Reith shivered under the quilt. Her body stiff with the old fear that the house would not hold.

Then Soran shifted.

His hand, calloused and steady, found hers beneath the blanket. Not tight. Not demanding. Just there. A presence. A weight.

Her breath caught.

The silence between them stretched, fragile as glass. But she didn’t pull away. She curled her fingers against his, just slightly, just enough.

And for the first time in years, she fell asleep without dreaming of screams.

A week later, she was bent over the stove, flour streaking her cheek, when his voice broke the silence.

“You hum when you cook.”

The words were quiet. Almost absentminded. As if they had slipped out before he could stop them.

Reith froze. Startled not by the observation, but by the fact that he’d spoken it aloud.

“I—” Her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t realize.”

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. His gaze calm. Unreadable. Yet softer than usual.

“It suits you.”

The words were simple. But her chest tightened as though he’d laid something heavy and precious in her hands.

Later that night, she caught herself staring at him as he stripped off his cloak by the hearth. Firelight caught the scars across his forearms.

She wondered what it would feel like to trace them. To know the stories carved into his skin. Not with words, but with touch.

She wondered what it would feel like to belong to him. Not out of necessity. But out of choice.

The days stretched into weeks.

The garden bloomed in bursts of color, spilling over the edges like something too alive to be contained. Vines wrapped lovingly around the beams of the house. The roof still held, strong despite storm and season.

And the village… the village had begun to smile again.

Children darted down the paths in pairs and packs, laughter chasing after them like sunlight. Smiles returned to the faces of old men and tired women.

They paused at the gate just to glimpse her—Reith—tending her garden. A soft hum on her lips. Sunlight in her hair.

One morning, a little boy trotted up to her. His cheeks red. His hands hidden behind his back.

“Miss Reith?” he said, shuffling his feet.

She turned, crouching to his level. “Hmm? What is it, little one?”

He pulled out a clumsy bouquet of crushed blue flowers. He held it out with both hands like a sacred offering.

“You should leave your husband and marry me instead.”

Reith blinked. Then laughed—light and warm like the breeze.

“Oh? And what makes you think I’d be so lucky?”

The boy grinned proudly. “I’m younger. And I’d never make you chop firewood.”

Soran, standing a few steps away with his arms crossed, arched a brow.

“Is that so?” His tone was dry. “You planning to cook dinner, too?”

The boy nodded seriously. “I know how to boil water!”

Reith looked back at Soran, biting her lip to stifle another laugh. “Sounds like competition.”

Soran walked over, eyes fixed on her. “He’s got nerve,” he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.

She tilted her head, amused. “Jealous of a six-year-old now, are we?”

“I’m just saying,” he murmured, brushing a speck of dirt off her shoulder, “he should watch his tone around married women.”

That was all. No kiss. No lingering touch. Just that quiet tension hanging in the space between them. Warm. Unspoken. Possessive.

The villagers adored them.

The way they moved around each other like gravity. The quiet coordination of a bond that didn’t need showy words or gestures. They were a pair that had suffered and survived, and now bloomed in front of everyone’s eyes.

But Reith’s beauty was impossible to ignore.

Young men passed by more often than before. Fixing gates that didn’t need fixing. Bringing baskets of berries as excuses to chat. Compliments clumsy, respectful—mostly.

Soran saw every one of them.

He said nothing. He just appeared beside her with impeccable timing. A hand resting lightly at her back. A glance sharp enough to send boys scurrying.

He didn’t mean to be possessive.

Not until he noticed how his jaw clenched when someone else made her laugh too easily.

The women weren’t blind either.

Soran’s quiet strength drew them like moths. They lingered. They waved as they passed, giggling behind veils, sometimes calling out:

“You’re wasted on garden work, Soran!”

Or,

“If your wife ever needs a break, let me borrow you for a day!”

Reith didn’t even look up from the basket she carried.

“He doesn’t stray,” she said smoothly. “He’s full on me.”

A silence hung in the air. Long enough for the other woman to blink, unsure if she had been insulted or warned.

Then Reith looked up. Eyes sharp and smiling.

“Trust me. He has no appetite left for anyone else.”

Her hand brushed against his. Then stayed.

He looked down, startled by the certainty of her fingers slipping into his.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just that touch.

Soran smirked. “She’s not my type.”

“No?” Reith asked, narrowing her eyes. “And what is your type, exactly?”

He leaned in a fraction. “Married. Fiery. Terrifying when jealous.”

She snorted and turned away. But he caught the twitch of a smile she tried to hide.

They never said it aloud, but they knew.

The village loved them. Envied them. Admired them.

And beneath all the easy smiles and harmless teasing, something possessive bloomed quietly between them. Rooted deep. Inevitable. Entirely theirs.

And slowly, without either of them naming it, the cabin became more than shelter.

It became home.

One evening, as twilight spilled violet across the hills, Reith sat by the doorway with a woven basket in her lap. She mended one of his shirts. The fabric was rough beneath her fingers, but the act was strangely peaceful. A rhythm she never thought she’d know again.

When Soran returned from the fields, Grave padded after him as always.

He paused when he saw her sewing. His shadow stretched long across the threshold.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Mending,” she said simply, not looking up. “You tear more seams than the wind.”

He grunted low. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

His silence stretched. Heavy. Unreadable.

Then, after a long pause, he stepped inside.

He crouched beside her, close enough that she could smell the faint smoke clinging to his clothes. He reached for the half-finished shirt. But instead of taking it, his hand brushed hers.

She looked up.

For the first time, he wasn’t shadow. Wasn’t restraint. His ember eyes met hers without the veil.

And Reith thought: If I touch him now, everything changes.

Her hand trembled. But she didn’t pull away.

Not this time.

That night, they didn’t turn away from each other in bed.

For the first time, their bodies aligned. No space. No silence. Only heat.

Her back pressed against his chest. His hand rested on her waist, rigid, as though fighting himself.

Reith turned in his arms. Their faces brushed close. Her breath caught against his lips. Fire burned in his eyes. Not just hunger, but fear. A plea he couldn’t voice.

She kissed him first.

Soft at the start, trembling with everything they had buried. But when he answered, it was different. Hotter. Deeper. Years of silence breaking open all at once.

His hand slid into her hair, gripping gently but with desperation. Holding her like he couldn’t let go.

Her body arched into him. The blanket tangled at their legs. Her fingers fumbled at the ties of her dress, trembling.

He caught her wrists, halting her. His forehead pressed hard against hers.

“Reith,” he growled, voice low and rough. “If I start… I won’t stop.”

Her answer was a whisper against his lips. “Then don’t.”

His control cracked. He cupped her face, searching her eyes in the dark.

And she gave him everything. Her voice raw, certain. “I love you.”

The words struck him like a blade. His breath stilled. His body taut above hers.

“Say it again,” he whispered, hoarse, almost begging.

“I love you, Soran,” she said, tears in her lashes.

Something inside him broke open. His mouth crushed hers, desperate. All restraint bled away.

The dress slid from her shoulders, pooling at her waist. His hands traced the skin revealed, reverent at first, then hungry.

“I love you,” he murmured against her throat. Words trembling. Words torn from a place he had never dared to open.

Her tears spilled. Her hands pulled him closer. “Take me,” she whispered.

Their bodies joined, slow at first, deliberate. Every movement steeped in meaning. She gasped into his kiss, trembling as he held her steady. His forehead pressed to hers. His voice ragged between breaths.

I love you. Stay with me.

Her nails raked across his back. Her voice broke as she answered.

I love you.

Their rhythm grew faster. Not just hunger but release. Years of silence and fear spilling out in every gasp and kiss.

He whispered her name over and over. Reverent. Until her body broke around him, cries muffled against his mouth. He followed, clinging to her as if he could lose himself in her and never be found again.

For a long moment, neither moved.

They were tangled in sweat and warmth. Her body trembling with the aftershocks. His chest heaving as he held her close, his face pressed to her hair.

When his breath steadied, he kissed her temple. His voice raw but certain.

“You’re mine.”

Her whisper was faint. Spent. Sure.

“Always.”

Soran gathered her against him, pulling the quilt over their tangled bodies. She curled into his chest. His heartbeat steady beneath her ear. His hand stroking her hair in slow, grounding motions.

“Your back…,” she whispered, remembering the marks she’d left.

“You gave me yourself,” he answered simply. His lips brushed the crown of her head. “It doesn’t hurt. That’s your mark.”

Her throat tightened. Tears pricked her eyes. She pressed closer, breathing him in. The scent of sweat and smoke and something wholly his.

They lay in silence. The fire crackled low. The night pressed against the cabin walls.

For the first time, she wasn’t cold.

For the first time, she wasn’t afraid of sleep.

Just before her eyes closed, she thought she saw something in the window’s glass. A fractured reflection, gone in an instant.

And she drifted into sleep in his arms.

Only peace.

At dawn, golden light spilled across the crooked roof.

Reith stirred with his arm still draped over her waist. Her body sore in ways that made her smile into his chest. His heartbeat slow. Steady. A rhythm she could have listened to forever.

The world outside was still dangerous. Still cruel.

But in his arms, she let herself believe in something more.

A fragile peace.

A fragile hope.

And deep inside, something else.

Far away, beneath the Citadel, another kind of silence stirred.

At the center of the chamber stood the Seer’s pool. Not water, but mercury. Black and gleaming. Its surface rippled in slow, unnatural pulses, as though it breathed.

Faces surfaced sometimes. Blurred. Whispering. Fading before they could be named.

The Seer knelt beside it. Her eyes had been carved away long ago. Sockets filled with molten silver that leaked constantly down her cheeks, streaking her hollow face with glistening trails.

Her fingers hovered just above the surface of the pool, trembling as though touched by something unseen.

When the Rook entered, the Seer turned her ruined gaze toward him. Her voice was thin. Ragged. Steady.

“They cannot hide from the sightless,” she whispered.

From the pool, something rose. Not by her hand, but by its own will.

A shard of glass. Jagged. Long as a man’s forearm. Its surface fractured into a dozen broken reflections. In each shard, faint images flickered—faces, places, memories stolen from the living.

The shard hovered in the air between them, dripping a slow trail of black liquid that hissed when it struck the stone.

“The Mirror Shard carries their echoes,” the Seer murmured. “The woman’s, most of all. She cannot flee her own reflection.”

The Rook extended a gloved hand. The shard sank into his palm, vanishing beneath the folds of leather as if swallowed whole. His mask tilted, the beak catching torchlight.

“They sleep,” the Seer said. Silver tears streaked her hollow face. “Find them in their dreams. Drag them from the roots they cling to.

“And when the blade falls, leave nothing behind. No ashes. No memory.”

The chamber fell silent. The pool stilled.

The air throbbed with fate already sealed.

The Rook rose from the puddle’s edge. His cloak dripped with mist.

In the hollow of his hand, the shard still glowed faintly. Fractured images crawled across its surface like trapped spirits.

He closed his fist. The visions bled into silence.

From beneath his cloak, he drew his blade. Hooked steel drank in the torchlight, slick with black oil. With slow precision, he carved a symbol into the mud at his feet—the Council’s mark, a spiral cut through with a single line.

A trail for the Seer, so she might follow his steps through the dark.

He fastened bone charms along his belt. Each one rattled faintly. Not from the wind, but from something restless trapped inside.

When all was in order, the Rook straightened. Silent as stone.

His mask tilted east, toward the fields and crooked houses waiting beyond the fog.

Then he walked.

Not hurried. Not hesitant.

Just steady.

And in Merrow’s Rest, Reith dreamed in warmth.

Unaware the mirror had already found her.