Dawn came pale and cold, turning the snow at the window into soft bands of light.
The boy still slept curled near the stove, breathing slow and even.
Dorian sat awake, elbows on his knees, staring at the pale sky.
His thoughts moved like a river slowed by ice.
"I am still here," he realized, not with surprise but with a strange, quiet wonder.
"I thought I would not see another morning. But I am here. And so is he."
His gaze drifted to the boy.
The child's face in sleep was less haunted, his mouth softened, his fingers loosely curled.
A memory stirred — the feel of a brush in his hand, the warmth of his son's small palm resting in his.
The memory hurt, but it did not crush him.
It was a reminder of something worth holding on to.
I felt the shift inside him — subtle but real.
The current of despair that had been drawing him toward the river lost its pull.
In its place was something smaller, more fragile, but alive: the beginning of a reason to stay.
The voice that had set this trial before me whispered faintly, almost like a sigh.
"Three turned from the edge. Four remain."
The wind at the window rattled softly and then stilled, as if the city itself had exhaled.
Dorian looked down at the paint box.
He opened it and touched the bit of blue pigment still clinging to one corner.
"Maybe," he said quietly to himself, "there's still something I can paint."
The boy stirred in his sleep but did not wake.
Outside, the first sunlight touched the frozen river, turning its black surface briefly to silver.