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He remained the same person, yet he seemed more certain than ever before.

Elowynn’s eyes crinkled with a genuine smile. “I think you might be right,” she agreed before turning her gaze back toward the horizon.

The abbey bells rang once through the Frostmere night.

Elowynn took another sip of tea, her shoulders easing their tension. With her eyes skyward, she watched the stars burn above the sea. Beside her, Caelyn leaned against the railing in comfortable silence.

Neither of them spoke. Neither needed to.

For the first time in a very long while, Elowynn found herself listening to the bells without counting what they had taken from her.

Chapter Four

“Loneliness rarely leaves all at once. More often, it is crowded out slowly by small kindnesses.”

— Sister Agatha

Frostwane, 746 A.V.

Another turning. Another Frost moon.

Still, news of the Ash Wars remained at a low.

Though winter had begun loosening its hold on Aetheris, the moon still carried enough cold to silver the cliffs each morning. The western sea remained violent beneath the dark skies, but the worst of Frostmere’s storms had finally passed. It had been a far milder Frostmere than the previous turning, with less snow and more clear skies.

Now, as the Dusk moons were on the horizon, snow no longer buried the abbey beneath towering drifts, and muted-green shoots had begun appearing between cracks in the stone pathways.

The bells sounded different during Frostwane. They were softer and less mournful. But it was more likely that Elowynn had changed again, and her perception of the bells was no longer shaped entirely by her grief.

She stood near the outer cloister gardens with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her dark blue robes, their fabric a soft wool, while the chilly wind stirred through the ivy climbing the abbey walls. The area smelled of damp soil and crushed herbs, and Elowynn took a moment to inhale deeply, filling her senses with the refreshing scent of spring creeping ever closer.

Beyond the cliffs, the sea stretched endlessly beneath a light gray sky streaked with silver clouds. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries carrying across the water before disappearing into the wind.

“Ah, found you! You were hiding again.”

Elowynn glanced sideways without surprise as Caelyn crossed the garden path carrying an armful of split firewood against his chest. He always seemed to be carrying something for someone. If there was a task that needed doing, Caelyn had usually found it before anyone thought to ask.

His hair had escaped its tie, leaving dark strands to lift in the sea wind. In the sunlight, the faint bronze beneath the black became visible, softening it to an almost brown. The physical labor he did around the abbey had changed him. His hands were rough with calluses now, and his wiry frame was giving way to broader shoulders and stronger arms. He had once again grown taller. Enough so that Elowynn now needed to tilt her head slightly upward whenever speaking to him directly, which she found quite irritating and absolutely refused to acknowledge aloud.

Elowynn tried very hard not to notice any of it.

She was not entirely successful.

“You say I was hiding as though I have been discovered committing some terrible crime,” she replied with a scowl.

Caelyn studied her for a moment. “You disappeared after lessons. I was worried.” He shrugged.

Elowynn stared at him for a moment before a soft sigh escaped her. “I only wished for silence. You know I typically wander off after lessons. It is not a new thing I do.”

Caelyn shifted his body weight and balanced the firewood against one arm as he moved closer. “What I think… is you wished to avoid Sister Maelin after she asked if you planned on eating lunch at the mid-sun bell.”

Elowynn narrowed her eyes at the smirk he gave her. “You all discuss me far too often, it seems.”

“You make it very easy,” he grinned.

Elowynn pursed her lips. “I am beginning to regret befriending you.”

“That, El… feels very unlikely.”