Telaryn stood in silence, high above the sleeping city.

From the keep’s frost-rimed window, Winter’s Edge sprawled below—its rooftops layered in soft snow, its chimneys thinly breathing. The lower wards were little more than a cluster of houses and tents pressed into the crags, a fragile sprawl of tarps and prayer flags caught between stone and sky. Smoke curled upward in hesitant lines. Somewhere, a hammer rang against metal—too light to forge, perhaps, but strong enough to remind someone they were still alive.

She did not feel it.

Her hand rested against the cold stone frame, fingertips tracing a shallow crack that ran through the mortar. Her thumb caught on the edge of it again and again, until the skin tore. She did not stop.

Enric’s name clung to the air behind her lips. She had not said it aloud. Not since the cairn. But the shape of it lingered in the back of her throat—weightless and terrible.

Her armor was still ashen from the flight—clay-caked greaves, a dent in the left pauldron, dark spatter stiffening the laces of her gloves. She hadn’t removed it, not fully. Just loosened the clasps to breathe. There was a comfort in its embrace, like the stone walls—cold, enclosing, unyielding.

A soft knock.

She turned as the heavy door creaked open, letting in the scent of bitter stew and melted tallow. Alisha stepped inside, a tray balanced in her arms.

“I brought food,” she said, voice quiet. Her eyes darted toward Telaryn, then away. She set the tray on a narrow table by the hearth, where the fire had guttered to coals.

“Thank you,” Telaryn said. The words tasted brittle.

Alisha hesitated. Her fingers lingered on the tray. Then she turned to go.

“You haven’t eaten,” Telaryn added, not sure why.

“I will,” Alisha replied. Her hand paused on the doorframe. “Later.”

The door closed gently behind her.

Telaryn did not move to eat. She let the cold return. From the window, the snow continued its silent descent, soft as regret. And somewhere beyond it, in the hush of a world that had not yet forgiven her, Telaryn traced the crack in the stone once more.