Semua Bab Claimed by Death : Bab 71 - Bab 74

Kieran’s Point of View The silence of the clearing is not empty. It is heavy, vibrating with the weight of things unsaid and the sudden, sharp proximity of a woman who has become my entire horizon. Nora lies on the blanket, her skin catching the moonlight until she looks less like a person and more like a celestial event. I have watched the birth of stars, the slow, violent churning of nebulae, but they were distant. Cold. This is warm. This is breathing. I shift, propping myself on one elbow to look down at her. My hand finds the curve of her bare shoulder. The dress she chose is a soft, dark fabric that leaves her collarbones and shoulders exposed to the night air. Under my touch, she is electric. “Nora,” I whisper. Her name is a prayer I didn’t know I was capable of offering. She turns her head toward me, her hair spilling across the blanket like ink. Her eyes are dark, the pupils blown wide as she tracks my movement. I lean in, my breath ghosting over the shell

Nora’s Point of View I wake with the memory of starlight still on my skin. For a moment, I do not move. I let the morning settle around me the way it does after something meaningful has happened, as though the world is being careful not to disturb the afterimage. The bed is empty. Not in the way that suggests absence, but in the way that suggests choice. The pillow beside me is still warm. The air holds the faint scent of him, clean and unmistakable. He was here. He stayed. And when morning came, he left on his own terms. I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. Sunlight cuts in pale lines across the room, making everything ordinary again. No visions. No pulls. No warnings. Just light, dust in the air, and the steady rhythm of my breathing. I sit up slowly and notice my body remembers last night in the gentlest way. Not pain, not ache, just awareness, like a door that opened and decided to stay open. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and rest my feet on the floor