The journey back to Saltmire was a different world.
The silence that had once felt predatory was now just the quiet of an early spring forest. The birdsong was no longer a defiance, but a simple fact. Kaelen found himself listening to it, really listening, for the first time in years.
Lyssa rode beside him, mostly silent. The frantic energy of survival had left her, replaced by a deep, thoughtful exhaustion. She watched the passing trees, the play of light on the path, with the rapt attention of someone seeing it all for the first time. Or the last.
On the third evening, as they made camp by a stream, she finally spoke what was on both their minds.
"He left because he had to, didn't he?" she asked, poking the fire with a stick. "Not because he didn't care."
Kaelen looked up from honing the worst of the nicks from his sword. "Arden Valen cares more than any man alive. That's the problem. If he stayed in Stillwater, he'd be a constant reminder of the horror. A walking monument to the thing that hollowed them out. They need to forget the monster to remember they're human. His presence… prevents that."
"He's not a monster," Lyssa said fiercely.
"No," Kaelen agreed, his eyes on the fire. "But he is a weapon. And you don't leave a naked blade lying in the nursery, no matter how noble its purpose."
She was quiet for a long time. "What am I, then? If he's a weapon, and you're a soldier… what does that make me?"
Kaelen put his whetstone down. The firelight softened the hard lines of his face. "You're the reason," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "You're the 'why'. The thing we pick up the weapon to protect. The life the soldier fights to return to." He felt his cheeks grow warm and busied himself with his sword again. "You're the proof that it's worth it."
Lyssa stared at him, the stick forgotten in her hand. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the stream's gentle murmur. In the quiet, something shifted between them. The shared terror of the quarry, the desperate alliance in Stillwater, it all coalesced into this moment of profound, simple understanding.
She didn't thank him. She just nodded, a small, sure movement, and offered him a piece of travel bread. Their fingers brushed as he took it, and neither of them pulled away immediately.
The hard peace after the battle was not just for Stillwater. It was here too, in this small circle of firelight, in the unspoken agreement to move forward, together, towards a home that awaited them.