“We need cover. Now.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Just pulls me forward, into the Grove’s heart.
I follow because there’s nothing else to do—because he’s here and he’s real and the wind can’t touch me with him in front of me.
We slip through a curtain of vines, and suddenly, we’re in a hollow I’ve never seen before—curved like a natural cathedral, with moss walls and flowering ivy that shields the entrance.
It’s quiet in here. Muffled.
Sacred.
I’m trembling. Not from fear. Fromeverything.
He kneels and pulls my bag toward us. I sit cross-legged on the damp floor, hair clinging to my cheeks, hands shaking.
“You came back,” I whisper.
“I never stopped watching.”
The words hit low in my chest.
He sits beside me, slow and solid, and when his fingers reach for mine—hesitant, deliberate—I don’t pull away.
His hand is rough. Bark-warm. Heavy like history.
He doesn’t squeeze.
Justholds.
For the first time in days, the pain in my chest begins to bloom into something else.
His thumb brushes lightly against mine.
It’s the softest thing.
Like bark shouldn’t be able to feel this gentle. Like ancient magic shouldn’t be able totremble.
But it does.
I look at our hands. At the way they sit between us, steady and impossible.
The silence grows warm around us, the storm pulsing just beyond the wall of vines.
I dare to break it.
“Why didn’t you come?”
His head turns slightly. “What?”
“The last few days,” I say. “You weren’t there. Not really. I thought maybe?—”
My throat tightens.
“I thought maybe I imagined all of it.”
Thorn’s gaze drops to our joined hands. His voice is rough when he finally speaks. “You didn’t.”
“Then why?” I whisper. “Why disappear?”
