The fire had burned low. Just embers now—soft and pulsing like the last breath of something once wild. The air was cooler here, sharper, curling through the trees and tugging at your sleeves. The others had drifted off one by one, their laughter fading like smoke, until the clearing held only the hush of night - and him.

Dante.

He hadn’t spoken much all evening. Not to anyone. Just stood in the dark, just outside the ring of firelight, leaning against the trunk of some old, knotted tree like it owed him nothing and he liked it that way. He didn’t fidget. Didn’t blink too often. Just watched.

You’d felt his eyes once. Maybe twice. Not in a way that unsettled. In a way that slowed your breath.

He stepped into the light without warning. No rustle of leaves, no crunch of dirt. Just one moment the fire was alone—and then it wasn’t. He didn’t sit close, only across from you, the heat catching along the collar of his jacket, lighting up the faint cut of a scar on his cheek.

He glanced at you, once. And you looked back.

No words. Not right away. Just the quiet. Just the pull of something unnamed threading its way between two people who hadn’t meant to find each other.

You looked away first, toward the fire. You could feel him still, the shape of him in the dark, the weight of his gaze on your profile. Something in your chest beat louder than the wind.

A few heartbeats later, you heard his voice - soft and low.

“Cold?”

You didn’t answer. But you didn’t deny it, either.

There was a pause. And then he shrugged off his coat.

He didn’t speak again—not for a while. He just passed it to you with one hand, gaze steady, and you took it like it was something sacred.

The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty. Not anymore.