They didn't light a fire.
Not because they couldn't—but because neither of them wanted to draw attention to themselves. The dark felt safer, even if it pressed in from all sides.
They found a shallow depression between stone outcroppings, just deep enough to break the wind. Aiden sat with his back against the rock, knees pulled in slightly, cloth pressed against his ribs. The pain had dulled into a heavy throb.
She knelt beside him, hands stained darker than she realized.
"I'll clean it again," she said quietly.
"It's fine."
She didn't argue. She just kept working.
The silence stretched.
Not empty.
Loaded.
Finally, she spoke. "I keep hearing it."
Aiden didn't ask what.
"The sound," she continued. "When he fell. When his head—"
Her voice caught. She looked down at her hands, fingers curling inward. "It won't stop."
Aiden closed his eyes.
"I don't remember his face," he said. "I remember the weight."
She looked at him sharply.
"The moment before," he added. "When I knew if I didn't move, you'd be the one on the ground."
Her throat tightened. "You still killed him."
"Yes."
The word sat between them, heavy and undeniable.
She nodded slowly. "I think… I think I would've done the same."
That scared her more than anything else she'd said all day.
The night deepened.
Stars emerged one by one, unfamiliar patterns stretched across a sky that didn't belong to them. Somewhere far off, something howled—not close enough to be immediate, not far enough to ignore.
She wrapped her arms around herself. "Do you think we'll get used to this?"
Aiden thought of the camp. The ruins. The settlement that enforced silence. The way the man's body had gone still too quickly.
"I hope not," he said.
She let out a shaky breath. "Me too."
They sat like that for a long time.
At some point, she leaned against him without asking. Just enough contact to confirm he was still there.
Aiden didn't move away.
Sleep came in fragments.
Aiden drifted, then snapped awake, heart racing, the echo of impact still ringing in his skull. Each time, the dark greeted him unchanged.
At one point, he noticed she wasn't sleeping at all.
"You should rest," he said softly.
She shook her head. "Every time I close my eyes, I see the river. Or the ravine. Or—"
She stopped herself, jaw tightening. "I don't want to dream here."
Aiden understood.
"This night won't end cleanly," he said. "But it will end."
She studied him in the faint starlight. "You sound sure."
"I'm not," Aiden admitted. "But waiting for certainty gets people killed."
She nodded.
That seemed to be a lesson the world kept repeating.
Just before dawn, when the sky lightened from black to gray, Aiden felt it again.
Pressure.
Gentle. Distant. Present.
Not fear.
Awareness.
He held still, breathing slow, not reacting.
After a moment, it eased.
The world moved on.
Whatever had been watching had finished deciding.
She noticed his stillness. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Aiden said.
That wasn't a lie.
It just wasn't the whole truth.
When the sun finally crested the stone, the night released them reluctantly. The world looked unchanged—same land, same paths, same dangers waiting beyond the next rise.
But they weren't the same.
She stood first, brushing dirt from her clothes. "We keep moving?"
Aiden nodded, pushing himself to his feet. Pain flared, then settled.
"Yes," he said. "We keep moving."
They didn't talk about what happened again.
They didn't need to.
Some things didn't fade with explanation.
They faded with distance.
As they walked on, the place where they'd stopped vanished behind them, swallowed by stone and shadow like it had never held anything at all.
The world didn't preserve moments.
Only those who survived them.
End of Chapter 14