Mark’s POV

The night was quiet, too quiet for my liking. I had learned to read silence like a map, and this one felt heavy, as though the air itself carried secrets it refused to share. The forest stretched around me, shadows pressing close, and for the first time in years, I could not steady the storm inside my chest.

Rissa was safe, or at least safer than she had been days ago. Still, the thought of her alone, bearing the weight of everything that had unfolded, left me restless. She had ...