C42 The Silence After Flame

Dawn crept slowly over the ash-laced grove.

For the first time in Evelyne’s life, there was no pull in her blood, no threat humming in the wind, no distant howl in the bones of the trees. Only quiet. And the quiet was strange.

Lucien sat on a boulder nearby, shirt torn, wounds bound in cloth and silence. He watched her—not like a leader guarding a queen