The glade was silver with moonlight.
Kael had never seen anything like it. Soft blue grasses bent with the wind, glowing faintly like breath held too long. Pale fungi dotted the edges of the clearing, and in the center grew a single, massive moonroot tree — its bark white, its leaves silver, and its trunk split down the middle like an open wound.
Riven stood beneath it.
Her silhouette was sharper in the moonlight. Not delicate. Just real. A survivor's frame—lean, scarred, steady. Her hair caught the wind in jagged layers.
Kael stood a few paces behind her, unsure whether to speak.
"You've never seen one before?" she asked without turning.
"I thought moonroot trees were a myth."
"They are," she said. "Except when they're not."
Kael approached slowly. "You've been here before?"
"Once." Her voice was distant. "A long time ago. I followed someone I trusted… and it nearly got me killed."
Kael frowned. "They brought you here to hurt you?"
"No," Riven murmured. "They brought me here to bind me."
She finally looked at him.
"I was twelve. The first time someone tried to use my blood for a ritual."
Kael's stomach twisted. "Riven…"
"I escaped. Barely. Took my brother with me. Ran for six years." She looked back at the tree. "He didn't make it."
A long silence stretched between them.
The wind rustled the silver leaves. Ash sat quietly at the edge of the glade, watchful but calm.
Kael stepped closer. "You don't have to tell me these things."
"I know," she said. "But I want to."
She looked at him again, and for the first time, her eyes didn't hold steel or suspicion.
They held choice.
"You bound part of your soul to the forest," she said. "To save me."
Kael nodded slowly. "You're worth saving."
"That's not something people have said to me before."
"I'm not 'people.'"
That earned the smallest smile.
They sat beneath the moonroot tree together.
Not touching. Not speaking.
But something passed between them in the silence—an unspoken agreement. A truce that wasn't just about blades and blood anymore.
Kael drew his knees to his chest. "Do you ever… think about what life would've been like, if none of this happened?"
"All the time," Riven whispered. "But I've stopped wishing for it."
He looked over. "Why?"
"Because I'd never have met you."
His breath caught.
Her face was still turned away. But the truth in her voice was clear.
No games. No seduction.
Just a confession.
And in the pale glow of the sacred glade, Kael felt something shift in his chest.
The ache of loss dulled—for just a moment.
Because someone had stayed.
Not for power. Not for status. Not even for survival.
But for him.
Later, when the stars had climbed higher and sleep began to tug at his limbs, Kael noticed something strange.
The moonroot tree's split trunk… was glowing faintly green.
Not from mosslight.
From within.
He rose, cautiously, and placed his hand to the bark.
A pulse answered. Soft. Alive.
Words etched into the bark flickered into view—only visible under the moon's eye:
To bind is to remember. To love is to risk.What you save… you become.
Kael stepped back, shaken.
Riven stood beside him, now awake, eyes wide.
She had read it too.
Neither of them spoke.
But their hands found each other in the dark.
Fingers laced. Not for warmth.
For promise.