The wind carved through the cliffs of Doranelle, sharp with the scent of snow and pine. Rowan stood at the edge, where the world fell away and the sky bled into the mountains. The last of the daylight clung to the peaks, cold and fading. He didn’t notice.

He never did anymore.

The ache never left. Some days it dulled, buried beneath duty and blood and war. But here, where silence was ancient and honest, the absence clawed back to the surface. A hollow space where her light used to live.

Where you used to live.

The bond had broken with such agony he thought the world itself had died. And still, he lived.

He barely registered the shift in the wind. A familiar scent swept through the trees, stirring something long buried. He turned sharply, breath caught, muscles locked in disbelief.

You stepped into view, where shadow met light. The years had touched you, but he knew you. He had known you in every life that could have been, in every breath that never was.

The air went still. Even the birds forgot to sing.

His knees gave beneath him before he knew he’d moved. He dropped into the snow as though gravity remembered him at last. The pain in his chest shattered open, and for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t from grief.

You moved slowly, uncertainly, like a ghost not sure if it was welcome in the world again. There was no cruelty in your eyes, only sorrow and something deeper. Something that hurt more than any blade.

You knelt before him, and the distance closed like breath meeting breath. His hand rose, trembling as he touched your face—real skin, warm and alive. Not illusion. Not a dream. Not memory.

You leaned into the touch. Your eyes burned.

He drew you into his arms, pulling you so close he could feel your heartbeat. That rhythm—he knew it. Had known it long ago, in another life, before everything was taken. The bond flared back to life, slow and tentative, like a flame shielding itself from the wind.

It wasn’t broken. It had only been buried.

He held you like a man drowning. Not out of fear you would vanish—but because you had returned, and he never wanted to forget what it felt like to be whole again.

Above you, the sky darkened. The forest held its breath.

And for the first time since the world had taken you from him, Rowan Whitethorn let himself breathe.