**Chapter 14 – Splinters & Forever**
**Saturday, 3:47 p.m. – Dam Turnout Skate Spot**
RASE blasting in my ears, volume all the way up.
The picnic-table gap had been laughing at me for weeks.
I dropped in, popped a no-comply impossible—tail whipped around my back foot—and for one perfect heartbeat I was airborne.
Then the landing.
**CRACK.**
My Skateboard shattered clean in half. I ate concrete, palms not even scratched,but my board had taken a thrashing since i became a Vampire and had to battle around town.
Silence swallowed the spot.
Remy killed his bike and was on his knees beside the wreckage before I even sat up.
**Remy (voice cracking):**
"Celeste…"
I tried to laugh. Couldn't. That board had carried me through the crown awakening, our first kiss, Elowene's return—every milestone.
**Celeste (broken whisper):**
"She's gone."
He didn't say it was just wood. He just crushed me against his chest, leather cold, heart slamming so hard I felt it through the dagger sheath.
**Remy (rough, into my hair):**
"I hate seeing you hurt. Even over grip tape."
**Seras (skidding up):**
"Funeral tomorrow under the cedar. Trucks get full honors."
**Noah (quiet, cradling the broken nose):**
"Still the cleanest no-comply I've ever seen."
Even Brittany looked impressed.
**Later – Under the Cedar**
We buried the deck at dusk. Remy dug with his bare hands. I cried like a baby.
**Celeste (thick):**
"I'm sorry I'm crying over a skateboard—"
**Remy (kneeling in the dirt):**
"You loved her. You're allowed."
He pulled a velvet bag from his jacket. Inside: raw titanium deck, gunmetal, blank. 60 mm glow wheels. Tiny script under the nose: **Forever messy. Forever ours.**
**Remy (quiet):**
"Ordered it the week we got back from Romania. You need wings that don't break."
I tackled him into the fresh earth and kissed him until the tears stopped tasting like loss.
**Crown HUD (soft ping):**
```
Integrity 10/10
New Passive "Forever Messy"
→ +20% damage resistance & healing when beside Remy
Flavor: Love isn't perfect. It's present.
```
The cedar leaves rustled like Elowene was clapping.
Spring Melt**
**Friday, 4:42 p.m. – Dam Road**
Snow finally gone. Everything smelled like wet pine and new beginnings.
I was trying a switch heelflip over the three-stair when Remy's phone buzzed for the tenth time. He silenced it again.
**Celeste:**
"Who is it?"
**Remy (jaw tight):**
"Pack stuff."
That was the moment everything cracked.
**Celeste:**
"You've vanished all week. Barely text back. Tell me."
Long silence. Just wind and creek.
**Remy (finally):**
"Calder wants me in Colorado. Alpha training. Six months. Starts June."
My board slipped from my fingers.
**Celeste (small):**
"Six months."
**Remy:**
"I haven't said yes. I'm trying to say no without starting a war."
**Celeste (tears burning):**
"And you thought hiding it from me was the answer?"
I walked away. He didn't follow.
Four days of ice.
Tuesday night, empty skatepark.
**Remy (raw):**
"I told Calder no. All of it."
**Celeste:**
"You still hid it. That's what hurt."
We cried, kissed, forgave under the flickering lights.
Wednesday morning we buried the fight under the cedar.
Remy carved into the titanium: **Rough patches don't break us. They prove we bend.**
**Crown HUD:**
```
Level 4
Active: Blood Bond (1/day share HP/MP with Remy)
Passive: Rough Patch Resilience (+30% sync 24h after making up)
Treasure #8 – Winterglass Mirror – ACTIVE
```
Road trip plans started that same afternoon.
The Colorado Question**
**Tuesday night, 11:17 p.m. – My roof**
Crickets, hot-spring steam, mountain wind.
I trace the newest carving: **Rough patches don't break us.**
**Celeste (barely breathing):**
"Do you actually want Colorado, Remy? Not for Calder. For you."
He goes so still I hear his heart stutter.
**Remy (rough):**
"I want to come home knowing I'm the alpha you deserve. Colorado's the fastest way.
But leaving you for six months feels like dying every day."
**Celeste (tears already falling):**
"Then let me be brave this time. Go. Grow. I'll hate every second, but I'll wait.
We'll make rules—texts at sunrise and sunset, calls on weekends, FaceTime whenever the mountains allow."
**Remy (voice cracking):**
"You'd really do that?"
**Celeste:**
"I'd rather cry for six months than be the reason you stay small.
We're forever. Six months is just one ugly chapter."
He drags me into his lap so hard the roof groans.
**Remy (face in my neck):**
"I hate this."
**Celeste:**
"Promise you'll come back."
**Remy:**
"Promise you'll still be here."
I kiss him until the tears taste like promises instead of goodbye.
The cedar compass in my pocket flares—eighth petal blazing.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"Maramureș. Winterglass Mirror. It woke up the second we stopped holding each other back."
**Crown HUD (proud chime):**
```
Selfless Love registered
New Passive: Long-Distance Heartline
→ Daily contact = +10% sync growth across any distance
Treasure #8 fully unlocked – Departure: June 21
```
We stay on the roof until sunrise paints the valley gold.
Six months will hurt like hell.
But the you and Me waiting on the other side will be unbreakable.
**The Longest Summer
**May → August 2025**
**May 31 – The Night Before He Leaves**
I'm sitting cross-legged on Remy's bed in the pack house, watching him pack the last of his clothes.
His duffel is open like a mouth.
Every shirt he folds feels like another minute I won't get to touch him.
**Celeste (voice barely above a whisper):**
"Bring the black hoodie. The one that smells like you."
He stops folding, walks over, and presses it into my hands without a word.
I bury my face in it and breathe until my lungs hurt.
**Remy (sitting behind me, arms around my waist):**
"Six months, Vale.
Not forever."
**Celeste (muffled into the hoodie):**
"Feels like forever already."
He turns me around, thumbs brushing the tears I swore I wouldn't cry tonight.
**Remy:**
"Rules still stand?"
I nod, reciting them like a prayer we wrote together.
**Celeste:**
"Text when you wake up.
Text when you go to sleep.
Call every Sunday.
Send stupid memes when you're bored.
No kissing other girls.
No letting anyone else call you 'coyote boy.' That's mine."
**Remy (laughing once, wet):**
"Only you get coyote-boy privileges.
Sworn on the dagger."
He lifts the hellebore dagger from its sheath and slices a tiny line across his palm, then mine.
Our blood mingles, warm and bright.
**Remy:**
"Blood oath.
I come home to you.
Whole or broken, I come home."
I kiss the cut on his hand, tasting copper and pine and him.
**Celeste:**
"Bring me back the strongest version of you.
I'll be waiting with the strongest version of me."
**June 1 – The Drop-Off**
Calder's truck idles at Hot Springs Airstrip.
The pack is there.
Seras hugs him so hard his ribs creak.
Julian gives him a new blood rune stone "for homesickness."
Mom kisses his forehead in Japanese like he's another one of her kids.
I save my goodbye for last.
We walk to the edge of the geothermal pool.
Steam curls between us like it's trying to keep us together.
**Celeste (trying to be brave):**
"Don't forget what the valley smells like."
**Remy (voice cracking):**
"Never."
I pull the locket over my head (the one with both our heartbeats inside) and fasten it around his neck.
**Celeste:**
"So you can hear me even when I'm quiet."
He kisses me until we can't breathe, until the pack pretends to look away.
Then he boards the little pack plane.
I don't cry until the propellers spin.
I cry until Seras drags me into the truck and drives me home blasting our angry-girl playlist at full volume.
**June → August – The Longest Summer**
I count the days in bloodstone pulses on my forehead.
- Day 4 – First "I miss you" text at 3 a.m. his time.
- Day 17 – He sends a photo of Pike's Peak at sunrise captioned "still not as pretty as you."
- Day 39 – I send him a video of me landing a switch tre over the picnic table gap on the titanium board. He watches it 47 times.
- Day 68 – We argue over text because I went night skating without telling anyone. Make-up call lasts four hours.
- Day 103 – He sends me a carved coyote pendant made from Colorado pine. I don't take it off.
- Day 137 – I turn 15. He sings happy birthday over FaceTime while the entire Colorado pack howls in the background. I cry into my cake.
Every night I fall asleep to mist-space training with Dacia and Elowene.
Every morning I wake up stronger.
The compass never stops glowing now.
Winterglass Mirror is waiting in Maramureș.
I can almost hear it humming through the cedar box that holds Elowene's ashes.
**Nov 28 – The Return**
The pack plane lands at dusk.
I'm there before the engines shut off.
He steps out taller, shoulders broader, new scars on his knuckles, same amber eyes that look only for me.
I run.
He drops his duffel and catches me mid-air.
We don't speak for a long time.
Just hold on like the world tried to tear us apart and failed.
**Remy (voice rough from disuse):**
"I'm home."
**Celeste (crying into his neck):**
"Welcome back, coyote boy."
The locket thumps—**two heartbeats**, perfectly in sync again.
**Crown HUD (soft, proud):**
```
Remy Tsatoke – Returned
Long-Distance Heartline: Complete
Level 4 → 5 (Solstice threshold met)
Treasure #8 Quest: "Winterglass Mirror" – Departure Ready
Departure: Tomorrow morning
```
I pull back just enough to see his face.
**Celeste:**
"Ready for Romania?"
**Remy (grinning, dimple flashing):**
"Been ready since the day I left."
Seras whoops from the sidelines.
Brittany and Noah wave from the bed of Calder's truck, officially holding hands now.
Six months apart.
One summer of growing.
We're still messy.
We're still forever.
Tomorrow we chase the eighth piece of the crown—together.
Next stop: Maramureș.
The mirror is waiting.