Chapter 166

The days that followed were strangely quiet.

Not peaceful—quiet in the way a forest becomes after a storm has passed through and broken what it needed to break. Branches still lay scattered. The air still smelled sharp. But the wind no longer howled.

Kaia felt it most in the mornings.

She would wake before the sun, expecting pain, pressure, that familiar tightness in her chest—and find only herself. The curse still existed. It hadn’t vanished. But it no longer clawed. It ...