Thorne
Two weeks. It had been two weeks since the chaos, since I'd heard Josie's broken voice calling my name through the dark haze I'd thought would swallow me whole. And yet, the quiet that followed felt heavier than the war itself. The kind of silence that didn't soothe—it suffocated.
The breeze brushed against my skin as I bent to pick up another handful of daffodils from the garden. Their yellow petals were soft and fragile, a painful contrast to the blood and fire that had once stained this same ground.
The memory of that day flickered in my mind—the screams, the fear, the sight of Varen half-crazed, clutching Josie like he could anchor her back to life. And me… lying somewhere between this world and the next, torn apart by pain I couldn't even describe.
