CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

The path sloped down into the valley where the village lay, roofs of thatch and timber clustered close, smoke curling lazily from chimneys. For Elara, the sight was unlike anything she had known. Gone were the towering stone walls, the echoing marble floors, the stifling trappings of nobility. Here was life simple and unadorned, where the rhythm of day and night seemed written not by decree but by the land itself.

Ryker slowed his pace as they passed beneath a wooden arch, its beams carved with symbols worn smooth by rain and years. His horse’s hooves clicked against the cobbled path, and already voices rose in greeting.

“Ryker!” cried one of the women from a doorway, her gray hair escaping its kerchief as she rushed forward. “Goddess above, it is you!”

Others followed — stout, rosy-cheeked matrons with aprons dusted in flour or damp from laundry. They came like a tide, clucking and cooing, their hands reaching for Ryker’s arms, his shoulders, as though to prove he was no phantom but