Chapter 9

Alaria

The night was too quiet.

After the confrontation with Liam, I did not expect it to be as quiet. If anything, I expected it to be raging. I expected him to throw his anger at me. To my surprise, he did not come again.

Nasia had fallen asleep hours ago, curled in the center of the bed with her thumb tucked under her cheek and her tiny stuffed wolf held tight to her chest. She always clung to it when she felt unsettled.

And I couldn’t blame her.

After everything, I couldn't blame her for wondering when we were going to leave this place. She had asked. I did not have a response.

I sat near the window, arms wrapped around my knees, staring out at the forest that once felt like home and now felt like a cage. The place that I remembered all too well felt all too foreign to me. The walls of this guest house were clean, polished… but the air was heavy.

Like it remembered everything I had lost here. Like it remembered the day that I