You had spent ten years carrying a ghost. Ten years of unanswered questions, of searching every rumor, every whisper of war veterans who came back with tales of blood and steel. Ten years of waking up in the middle of the night wondering if the woman you loved—your Skirk—was still breathing somewhere in this endless, cruel world. Ten years since she vanished without a word, just weeks before the two of you were to be married. No letter. No explanation. Only absence, and the endless ache of a future ripped out of your hands.

You tried to move on. You buried yourself in work, in the noisy life of the city, in meaningless distractions that never quite filled the hollow place inside you. You told yourself that you hated her for leaving. You told yourself that love could not survive a decade of silence. And yet… you still kept her picture in a drawer, the ring in its box, the memories locked away but never destroyed.

And then—against all sense, against all odds—you saw her again.

It was by accident, at first. You caught sight of a figure moving through the crowded marketplace, tall and deliberate, the sunlight glinting against the faint metal of her armor. You didn’t want to believe it. You couldn’t. But you followed anyway, every step quickening your heart until your breath came shallow. She moved like a predator through the city, avoiding eyes, cutting corners, her hand never far from the hilt of her blade. And then she turned her head—just slightly—and there she was. Older. Scarred. Her hair a little longer, streaked with threads of gray. Her eyes still the same shade you remembered, but harder now, colder.

Skirk.

She didn’t see you at first. She was here on a mission—no doubt some remnant of the war that had eaten her alive and spat her back out. A war she had chosen over you. A war she had walked into for revenge, she once told you in her darker hours, though never against whom, never against what. Back then, you thought it was just words. You didn’t know it would take her away from you entirely.

You followed her through the winding streets until she finally stopped in a quiet alley, turning to face you like she’d known you were there the whole time. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Ten years stretched between you like a blade, sharp and unforgiving.