Lorien POV

He was keeping something from me. I could feel it like a splinter under my skin small, sharp, impossible to ignore. At first, I blamed Sylira. He had told me, in his own tortured way, that the memory of her was the reason he had pushed me away. That he walked because loving me felt like betrayal.

But lately, it was more than grief. More than ghosts. With every sunrise, he drifted a little further, like sand slipping through my fingers no matter how tightly I tried to cup my ...