The night hung heavy with the scent of smoke and damp stone, as though the Ember Walk still clung to Sorin's skin. He sat at the edge of the training yard, his breath fogging in the cool air, the weight of silence pressing against his chest.
Around him, the remnants of the torches guttered low, their light fractured into shards of amber across the cracked stone.
Zira approached quietly. She did not speak at first, only sat near him, her presence a steady anchor against the whirl of thoughts in his mind.
Sorin turned slightly, catching her profile in the dim glow—sharp yet softened by the quiet of the night.
There was something unspoken between them, not yet a flame, but the faint warmth of embers refusing to die.
"You carried yourself well today," Zira murmured at last, her voice low, as if wary of disturbing the silence that wrapped around him. "The Ember Walk is meant to break many. Yet you endured."
Sorin did not answer, not in words. His eyes shifted toward her, a flicker of acknowledgment, gratitude buried beneath weariness.
The silence between them was not empty—it hummed, alive with the weight of what could not be said.
Zira studied him, her gaze steady. "You don't have to carry it all alone."
For the briefest moment, Sorin almost believed her. Almost. But his path was carved in silence, and silence did not release easily. Still, when her hand brushed against his—not a grasp, not even a full touch, but the barest meeting of skin—he did not pull away.
The world seemed to still, the distance between heartbeats stretching longer than time itself.
It was not love. Not yet. But it was something—fragile, dangerous, and alive.
Above them, the sky stretched wide, the stars like scattered embers across a blackened hearth.
Sorin exhaled slowly, the sound nearly a sigh, and for the first time since the trial, the silence no longer felt like a burden. It felt like a bridge.
And Zira, sitting beside him in the half-light, was the only one brave enough to cross it.