Semua Bab Bloodied Ashes: Bab 81 - Bab 85

Lira (POV)A soft rustle first. Then the crunch of boots over dead leaves and ashen grit. He moved like a storm turning back before it struck—coiled but contained.I didn’t lift my head.Let him look. Let him see me like this: not bloodthirsty or blazing, not branded or burning. Just… broken open. Still breathing. Still unsure if that was victory or loss.His steps stopped close. Closer than I expected. Something landed near my thigh with a soft thud.I glanced.A strip of meat—dry, dark, likely smoked in some backwoods pitfire. A waterskin next to it, leather cracked but full. His hand hovered a second too long before pulling back, fingers curling into a loose fist like he hadn’t meant to hesitate.“I don’t need—” My voice caught, rasped raw against the inside of my throat. I swallowed, tasted iron. “I’m fine.”A lie.He didn’t correct me. Didn’t offer comfort. Just returned to the jagged rock he’d claimed earlier and lowered himself onto it again, slow, stiff. His jaw was tight, the

Lira (POV)We lay with our backs turned to one another. Not far. Not close. The moss between us stayed cold, untouched. Kael hadn’t spoken since the Spiral quieted. Neither had I. But I knew he was awake—the way a tree knows lightning is waiting. His breathing was steady—but not soft. Too measured to be sleep. Too controlled to be peace. Like he thought if he let go of the silence, it might splinter between us again.The Bone Moon hung above, high and unblinking. Its light spilled across the forest floor in long veins of silver, catching on the broken ash clinging to his boots, to my wrists, to the places neither of us had washed clean yet. My wolf had gone still. Not in fear. Not in retreat. Just… folded down in the quiet. Listening.I used to think that silence between us meant distance. That if we weren’t pulled tight by the tether, there’d be nothing left but air. But now, it felt heavier than any bond ever had. Kael shifted once. Barely a breath. Not toward me. Not aw

Lira (POV)The first thing I noticed was the quiet.Not the kind wrapped in comfort or sleep. No birdsong. No wind. Just… silence. Heavy. Settled into my skin like dust after fire.It took a moment to realize I wasn’t dead.My eyes peeled open slowly, lashes stiff with sweat or dried blood. The sky above me looked pale, not dawn-bright, not bone-moon silver. Just emptied out. A colorless hush. Like something had been taken from it too.I didn’t move at first. My body felt distant, like it hadn’t fully decided to belong to me again. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and there was a copper taste threaded through my breath. I shifted my fingers. Dirt clung to them. No blood. No tether-pull. Just weight.My chest ached—not the gash I remembered, not the bruises from the ritual—but something deeper. A hollowness where something once lived. Where something once burned.I reached for it without meaning to—the bond. The tether. That bright red thread, always thrumming beneath the surfa