The world does not erupt back into noise. It returns slowly. Like something long held underwater finally allowed to rise.
Kael does not step away from her immediately. His hand lingers at her waist, as though some part of him still expects her to vanish if he lets go, as though this fragile, impossible stillness might fracture if he moves too quickly.
The stillness does not last. Awareness returns in pieces.
Smoke drifting through ruined streets. Dragons settling against shattered towers. The metallic sting of blood is still thick in the air.
And absence.
Kael’s gaze moves instinctively across the battlefield, searching without meaning to. For shadows. For soldiers. For the people who have always stood beside him in the aftermath of ruin.
Ronyn.
Alive.
Seren.
Jax.
Elyssara.
Alive. Alive. Alive.
Relief tries to take shape inside him, but it can’t take root. Because…
Kael’s stomach drops.
No.
The thought arrives before understanding does.
No.
“Teddy?” The name tears from him before he realizes he’s spoken.
Elyssara stills beneath his hands, and suddenly he knows. Not from her words, but from the grief in her eyes.
The world tilts violently beneath him.
Kael staggers back a step like the blow lands physically, one hand dragging hard across his mouth as something raw and broken tears through his chest.
Not Teddy.
Gods. Not him.
Not the man who stood beside him through every war. Every nightmare. Every impossible choice.
His General.
His brother.
The battlefield blurs.
He sees Teddy laughing across firelight in Thornewood. Sees him shaking his head at him for being too possessive in Galreth. Sees him barking strategy over maps neither of them believed would work. Sees him standing shoulder-to-shoulder beside him when the world turned vicious and ugly and cruel.
Steady.He was always so godsdamned steady.
“Teddy died protecting Dravara,” Elyssara says softly. “Nyrielle killed him. Not you,” she clarifies, knowing exactly where his mind would take him.
