“Let them wonder.” But I don’t argue when he starts walking.
We move through the broken landscape, side by side, hands linked, leaving the site of our godkilling behind us. The terrain underfoot is still unstable—fractured ground shifting with every step, reality reasserting itself in fits and starts. But it’s manageable. Survivable.
Everything feels survivable now.
The sky normalizes as we walk. Wrong hues fading into ordinary blue, the air tasting clean in a way I’d forgotten was possible.
“You’ve thought about this.” I feel the direction in his steps. The certainty. “Where we’re going.”
“I’ve thought about it since the first time I realized I wasn’t going to let you die.”
The ridge appears on the horizon—simple rock formation against ordinary sky. Beyond that, the future neither of us expected to survive long enough to face.
My grip tightens on his hand.
He tightens back.
We keep walking.
The sun beginsto set as we crest the ridge.
A sunset—orange and gold bleeding into purple, the natural progression of light through atmosphere. No interference. No manipulation. Simply the day ending the way days are supposed to end.
I stop at the top of the ridge to watch.
Kaster stops beside me. His attention shifts from the sunset to my face, tracking my expression with intensity that has become familiar. Reading. Evaluating. Finding what he needs to see in the way I stare at colors that are simply colors.
“I’d forgotten what normal looks like.” The admission slips free without planning.
“Normal.”
“No threats on the horizon. No monsters circling. No god watching from dimensions I can’t perceive.” I gesture at the peaceful landscape spreading before us—rolling hills, actual vegetation, a sky that’s simply sky. “This is what existence looks like when nobody’s trying to kill you.”
“It takes getting used to.”
“You’ve experienced this before?”
“Not like this.” His jaw works. “Temporary reprieves. Brief periods between hunts. But never... permanent. Never with the certainty that the thing hunting me is truly gone.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m standing on a ridge with the witch who made my kills permanent, looking at territory where no god is watching.”His attention returns to my face. “And I’m trying to remember how to exist without constant threat assessment.”
“How’s that going?”
“Poorly.” His mouth curves again—closer to a real smile than before. “I keep scanning the tree line. Evaluating defensible positions. Calculating escape routes.”
“Old habits.”
“Very old habits.” His hand squeezes mine. “But I have time to develop new ones.”
Time. We have time now. Centuries, possibly. The mating extended my lifespan to match his.
“What kind of new habits?”
“Sleeping without one eye open. Eating meals that aren’t consumed while scanning for ambush.” He pauses. “Existing without constantly evaluating the nearest creature for threat potential.”
“That last one seems like a lot to ask.”
