Chapter 7 — Somewhere Warm
The room remained quiet after that.
Too quiet.
She slowly pulled her hand back from my face.
"…Maybe it wasn't as deep as I thought," she said with a small laugh.
The sound felt forced.
I could tell she didn't believe her own words.
Neither did I.
For a moment neither of us spoke. The fire crackled softly while rain continued tapping against the windows.
She stood first.
"I'll make something warm."
I watched her silently as she moved around the small house. The normalcy of it felt strange. A kettle boiled softly over the fire while she gathered ingredients from the wooden shelves — soup, water, warm light. Things that should have felt ordinary.
Somehow they didn't anymore.
"You can rest tonight if you want," she said, stirring the pot slowly. "The weather's terrible anyway."
"…You trust strangers too easily."
She glanced back. "You don't seem dangerous."
The words almost made me laugh. Instead I looked away.
If only she knew.
A few minutes later she placed a bowl in front of me. Steam rose quietly into the cold air.
"…Thanks."
She sat across from me with her own bowl. The silence between us was no longer tense. Just unfamiliar.
"You really aren't from Norvale, huh?" she asked eventually.
"No."
"You talk differently. More formal."
"I used to work around nobles."
Not completely a lie.
She hummed quietly. "That explains it."
Another silence.
"…You said your name was Seren, right?"
"…Yes."
She nodded once. "I'm Clara."
Simple. Casual. As if she expected nothing in return.
For some reason, hearing her name properly felt strangely important.
"There's a cot near the wall. You can sleep there tonight."
I looked toward it. Old blankets. Worn fabric. Small. Probably uncomfortable. Yet somehow it looked softer than any bed I remembered from the palace.
"…You sure?"
"You look like you're about to collapse." A faint smile. "Besides, it's not like I can leave you outside now."
I didn't know how to respond to that.
"…Thank you."
Clara waved the words away. "You've said that a lot too."
I looked down at the soup.
Eventually the fire burned lower. The lantern dimmed. One by one the sounds inside the house faded until only the rain remained.
I lay down on the cot. The blankets smelled faintly of smoke and old wood. Warm. My body sank into them heavier than expected.
For a while I stared at the ceiling.
The wound was gone. Not healing — gone. As if it had never existed.
I touched the side of my mouth. Smooth skin. No pain. No scar.
The broken blade flashed in my mind. The blood. The screaming. The way those men had looked at me.
Like I wasn't human.
Maybe they were right.
I closed my eyes.
Liora came immediately — not the blood this time, just her face. Still. The way she'd looked that last morning before everything. And then the absence where she should have been, wide and silent, like a room someone had just walked out of.
I opened my eyes.
Darkness. The small house silent around me. From somewhere nearby I could hear Clara breathing steadily in her sleep.
Alive.
Someone kind enough to help a stranger without asking anything in return. Someone I should leave behind before—
My fingers pressed into the blanket.
That was why I needed to leave.
Before I destroyed another life.
I turned toward the rain-streaked window and lay there without moving, knowing exactly what staying meant.
I still hadn't moved.