Their cottage was small, tucked beneath the arms of a leaning pine, walls patched with old timber and moss. They lived with little—what he hunted, they ate; what he trapped, he traded. There was no gold, no silk, no finery. But the fire never went out, and the roof never leaked.

The hunter rarely spoke. Words, to him, were like arrows—used only when necessary. But he listened. He listened when she spoke of the stars, of birdsong, of the colors she missed from a life she couldn’t quite remember. And he kept every word like a coin in his pocket.

He knew she liked the sound of river water over stones. So he brought her a smooth stone with a blue vein, still wet from the stream. She once spoke of sweet roots from her childhood, and the next week, he left a small bundle of them by her bedside.

He never asked for thanks.

That morning, as he prepared to hunt, he looked at her longer than usual. “Stay inside,” he said. “The forest does not forgive.”

She nodded, but her heart longed for the open sky. She stepped out, just for a little while, drawn by the sunlit canopy. It was there, among ferns and whispering leaves, that the wolf came.

It struck swift, raking its teeth across her arm before vanishing into the undergrowth.

She made it back, breath shallow, blood staining her sleeve. When he found her, pain flared in his eyes, sharper than the cut on her skin. He said nothing at first, only cleaned the wound and wrapped it with linen he could scarcely afford to use.