جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 124

(Calla's POV)The scent of freshly baked bread had wafted down the corridor ahead of us when we walked into the dining hall. It was warm and yeasty and encompassed me like a mantle.After all those months of iron and ash and blood, even the clatter of plates against a table felt like magic.I stayed in the doorway, letting the moment seep in. The enormous oak table had been cleaned until it glowed. Candelight pool-ed at its center, throwing shadows across platters of roasted vegetables, stew-bowls, a loaf of warm black bread fresh from the oven. Someone, Freya, I guess, had placed sprigs of rosemary and wildflowers among the dishes. It wasn't elegant, but it was home.Home. I had savored the word on my lips and near-cried.The dining room itself had breathed happiness. Shadows had danced upon the walls, softer than they'd danced in months. No bitter fluorescent lights, no metal countertops, wood and stone and the gentle flicker of flame.Windows had been flung open to let the evening

(Calla's POV)The air was thinner here, pine-smelling and cold. Each time I trekked these hills to the cottage of the old seer, it was another world.Freya marched alongside me in her characteristically calm way, but I could feel the inquiry humming under her skin. We had both been through so much, and yet here we were again, seeking answers.Asher's gentle laughter arose in my memory, the way he'd been racing Rowan around the courtyard that day. He had been okay, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright, but a mother remembers what she witnesses. That fever.The frailty. How his tiny hands had clung to me. Even now, months later, the recollection could leave me breathless.I shifted the basket in my arms, loaded with offerings the seer would never refuse: a bouquet of Freya's garden herbs, honey from the bees of our pack, a small silver coin Asher had insisted on including "for good luck."Freya glanced over at me. "You're not saying much.""I'm thinking," I said softly."About him?" she