Chapter 115: Shadows Don’t Trip When They Run
Amari caught movement ahead—not the panicked, sharp kind he’d come to recognize in prey, but the unspoken kind that meant someone else was already watching. His pace slowed. Not to stop. To listen. The girl’s path was thinning, her steps fresher. But it wasn’t her presence that made the air change. It was the absence around her. The sound that should’ve been there.
Then—between branch and silence—Shylo materialized.
Not with flair. Not with warning. He didn’t rise from the roots, he unfolded from them. A shape the trees had worn for too long. The air seemed to breathe differently when he moved—like wind shifting to accommodate.
Amari didn’t nod. Shylo didn’t speak.
They simply stood together—one coated in blood and motion, the other in stillness and patience—and watched the girl emerge from the trees, stumbling, breathless, eyes darting for landmarks like she was trying to remember a dream that had already soured into nightmare.
Then she saw him.
A man in dull gray armor—etched, royal, lined with the mark of her house. His helm was clipped to his side, his beard short and dark, posture tight but not hostile.
"Princess," he said softly, moving to steady her.
Her breath caught. "Kael...?"
He nodded. "You’re safe now. We thought—when you disappeared..." His voice shook for half a beat. "No matter. You’re back. That’s what matters."
She tried to speak—something about the village, the others who’d tried to help her escape, the battles roaring behind the woods—but the words tangled in her throat.
Kael’s hand came gently to her shoulder. "You’re going to be fine. I swear it. We’ll get you to shelter. The fight will handle itself. Let the Guard end this."