For a long while, we stood there.
The world seemed to hold its breath — the river, the sky, even the wind.
Anara's face was turned toward the water, but her eyes were distant, as if seeing something far beyond it.
The memory of her husband's last smile, the sound of her child's cough, the quiet of the house when the lullaby stopped — all of it passed through her in slow, painful waves.
Her fingers loosened on the railing.
The voice that had so often mocked me, the one that had spoken from the pit, murmured faintly in the back of my mind — as if disappointed.
"You think she'll choose you? You think you can save them all?"
I ignored it.
I kept my voice steady, low, almost a whisper against the river's murmur.
"Breathe, Anara. Not for me. Not for the world. For yourself. You still have that power."
The moon came out again from behind the clouds, silvering her face.
She drew a slow, ragged breath.
And then, almost imperceptibly, she stepped back from the edge.
Her knees buckled.
I caught her — or rather, her own arms caught the rail as if clutching life itself.
A sob broke from her chest, sudden and raw.
The kind that comes not from weakness but from the first crack in a wall long held shut.
She sank down to her knees on the bridge, her face buried in her hands.
I knelt beside her in silence.
No words.
Just the sound of her breathing, rough and uneven, but still there.
Still alive.