Lahat ng Kabanata ng You Left, I Could Have Fixed Us: Kabanata 171 - Kabanata 180

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Nine Maya’s POV The hallways were quiet at this hour, but not silent. The castle never slept completely. There were always footsteps somewhere, the faint click of steel, the murmur of voices behind half-closed doors. But tonight, everything felt sharper. Every sound carried. Lena walked beside me, her steps quick but steady. She didn’t speak, and I didn’t ask her to. There was nothing to say yet. The decision was still settling inside me, threading itself through my bones. We reached the west corridor first. Arin was there, sharpening his blade the same way he always did when he couldn’t sleep. He saw us and stood immediately. “When?” he asked. “Now,” I said. He nodded once. No hesitation. No questions. He slid the blade into its sheath, grabbed his cloak, and fell into step behind us. Sera was next. She was awake too. Sitting near a window with her knees pulled to her chest, staring out at the dark. When I told her, she didn’t blink. She just rose, b

Chapter One Hundred Seventy-One Maya’s POV His weight was heavier than I remembered. Not in a way that pulled me down, but in a way that made me realise just how long he had been fighting before we found him. His breath was rough against my shoulder. I tightened my grip, steadying both of us. Ethan’s hand came to rest on my arm, fingers warm despite the blood. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. His eyes did enough. The kind of look that stripped everything else away. The distance. The fear. The mistakes. All of it. Alvarez stepped past us, sword still drawn, scanning the shadows. The last soldier had already fallen, but the ruined walls made sound echo in strange ways. We couldn’t be sure we were alone. “Check the corridors,” he ordered quietly. Arin and Lena moved without hesitation. Sera stayed near the entrance, arrow notched, tracking every corner. I lowered Ethan slowly until he was sitting against one of the broken pillars. I kept my hand on him, grounding hi

Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Three Maya’s POV We didn’t move immediately. Even after Alvarez spoke, the group stayed scattered around the clearing not resting, not talking, just taking in the silence. The kind of quiet that settled after running for too long. Ethan leaned back slightly on the stone, eyes half-closed, breathing slow and steady like he was forcing his body to obey. His hand was still near mine, close enough that the warmth of him rested against my skin. I didn’t move it away. I didn’t want to. Sera returned first, her boots quiet over the grass. She was always quiet, even when she didn’t need to be. Her expression was unreadable when she stopped in front of Alvarez. “There are tracks to the south,” she said. “Not fresh, but not old enough to ignore.” Alvarez didn’t look surprised. He rarely did. “Scouts?” “Or hunters,” Sera said. “Either way, someone was moving through here.” Ethan opened his eyes. “Are they following us?” “Not directly,” Sera answered. “But clo

Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Five Maya’s POV Ethan didn’t fall asleep right away. His breathing stayed steady, controlled, like he was trying to stay present in his body instead of letting exhaustion drag him under. His hand was still in mine, his thumb brushing slowly over my knuckles in a way that felt like instinct more than thought. I stayed beside him on the floor, my back against the wall, knees drawn loosely up. The room was dim now. Only one lantern burned. The others had been turned down low to save fuel. The shadows moved softly across the stone, and the air felt warm and close. Sera sat near the door, sharpening a knife. The quiet scrape of metal against stone kept a rhythm. Arin had fallen asleep sitting upright, his head tilted back, arms crossed loosely. Lena rested curled under a blanket near the fire pit. Alvarez was outside, keeping first watch. Everything felt still in a way that wasn’t peace, but something like it. The kind that comes after a storm, when the w

Chapter One Hundred Seventy-SevenMaya’s POVThe air grew colder as we moved downhill. The path narrowed into a worn strip of earth, half-frozen and slick in places where frost still clung to the grass. The valley on our left fell away into a deep gorge, the sound of rushing water faint but steady far below. On the right, the slope rose steep and uneven, scattered with dark evergreen trees that looked almost black against the grey morning sky.No one spoke for a while. The quiet wasn’t heavy. It was focused.Ethan walked ahead of us, his shoulders tense beneath his coat. I could see the way his attention shifted constantly from the bend in the road, to the treeline above us, to the pale horizon in front of us where the mountains met the sky. It wasn’t fear. It was a calculation. The kind of awareness that comes from knowing danger doesn’t always announce itself.Sera walked beside me now, her steps light and her eyes sharp. She didn’t look tired even though she hadn’t slept. She never