“I will wait. I will always wait.”
Zarrek makes a sound of frustration, then yanks open the door.The doorknob falls to the floor. Bent out shape. Useless. The clang of it hitting stone pierces the quiet like a spear, and even Zarrek cannot help but flinch at the sound.
“Stop torturing yourself,” he says. “Let me take you to Kael’Vethar. There are people there that can understand. You. Your magic. It’s better than sitting here, looking out a window, and wasting away.”
Auryn’s lower lip trembles. She turns back to the vegetables at the table. Her shoulders shake.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” she chokes out.
Zarrek lets out a pent up breath. “I’ll be back in a bit, little star. Please, think about it.”
The door groans closed behind him.
Auryn tries to pick up the rhythm at the baskets once again, but her hands shake, and she stops. She turns—looking past me,through me—and walks to the rocking chair to sit.
“I know you’re there,” she whispers, and for a moment the bands release my lungs.
I stumble to her side, still voiceless, and kneel in front of her. I put my hands on her knees. Or try to. My fingers slip right through her tiny trembling form. Her shoulders quiver, and when the tears come, I tilt back my head and scream without sound.
Because I cannot touch her.
I cannot comfort her. Hold her. Quiet her.
Cannot tell her I am here.
I can only sit here and let the horror of this vision consume us both as we break apart without each other.
When I can breathe again—when her shoulders stop shaking and her tears dry, untended—something draws my gaze to the lone window in the cottage. Outside, the flow of time begins to race. The sun dips and falls on the horizon. Wind blows weeds and grass in all directions outside. Clouds move across the sky. Rain comes. Thunder. Then more sun.
And all the while, Auryn sits still and untouched in her rocking chair, looking out the window.With me, yet without me.
Zarrek does not return.
Not the next day.
Not the next Cycle.
Someone comes to Auryn’s door carrying a sword I don’t recognize. They say Zarrek has been killed fighting in a rift. His name was added tothe list of heroes in the center square of Maradryn. Much like Thessia the Lioness and then her Second, Talia.
Auryn nods. Numb. So very numb.
Time passes.
The cottage blurs.
Auryn spends most of her days in that rocking chair, hardly eating, growing thinner—even smaller.
I beg her to eat. To drink. To sleep.
But she cannot hear.
At last, she stands from that accursed chair and opens the door outside. She rests at the doorway, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone cold. Beyond the porch, grass bends in the breeze—endless rows of gold swaying under a pale sky.
I blink, and she changes.
Her hair is longer now, unbound, drifting down her back like silver thread. Farmland rises around her. Grass transforms to wheat and other crops. The ground is tilled and cared for. A village is built.
The locals call her the Silver Witch and keep their distance.Some speak kindly, from afar. But never close. Cycles blur—Growth, Fire, Ice, Dark. Her garden blooms. Then withers. She plants again. Not out of love. Just out of that tired old rhythm. Hands seeking a task, so the heart won’t still.
