I lay there, small in the vastness of it all. Ryllie lay beside me, close enough that I could feel her warmth. It was strange. I wasn't sure if she had moved toward me. I wasn't sure if I had reached for her. Either way, she was there.
And yet, I couldn't sleep.
I can't sleep.
Why can't I sleep?
It's not Ryllie. She's not doing this to me.
The bear.
This was the first time I had tried to sleep since fighting that bear. It wasn't the pain that kept me awake—it was the memory. Every scratch, every scar, every bite, every time it had weathered me down.
They weren't just wounds on my body.
They were carved deep into my soul. Etchings in stone that would never fade. I could still hear the growling. The sound of its claws tearing through flesh.
My flesh.
If killing something strengthens your core, improves your pearl… then surely dying does too.
I hadn't died since then, and yet—I was still afraid.
Afraid of death. Afraid of an enemy that would never come.
Ryllie was right.
Even if I wasn't in danger now, the fear wouldn't leave me. It gnawed at me, hollowing me out from the inside.
And then—
I was dreaming. Or maybe I was remembering.
I dreamt of my death. My true death.
The one on the plane.
The faceless girl was there.
She stood before me like an echo of something half-forgotten. I knew her. I knew her as if she had been part of my life for years.
Though, I couldn't recall a moment we had spoken.
Her slender form is draped in light. Flowing fabric that stays still even as the wind stirs around her.
The material glowed softly. Its color shifts, fading from soft gray to the deep blue of a stormy night.
She was tall but not towering, her form poised, weightless.
Her hands were delicate, the fingers long and fine, as if meant for something precise. But her face—her face was nothing.
Not obscured. Not hidden.
Just nothing.
Like my mind refused to remember what should have been there.
Every time I tried to focus, to picture her features, the space where her face should be twisted into a blur.
A smear of light and shadow.
And yet, I could feel her looking at me.
She moved like she knew me. She stepped closer. I couldn't see her expression, I could feel the weight of it.
She tilted her head, she reached out.
Like we had done this before.
My heart pounded.
I wanted it to be Ryllie. I wanted it to be her.
But it wasn't. It had never been.
And yet—I loved her.
Again and again, across every life I could have lived. For as long as I existed, for as long as she did. Even if it meant nothing.
Even if my life would outpace hers, even if I would lose her, even if time would stretch between us like an uncrossable chasm—I would still do whatever it took.
I wanted her to love me, even though I knew she never could.
We were too different.
I wasn't a dragon. I was only half of one. The life she lived and the life I would live—they would never be the same.
We have nothing in common.
She was right. Keeping my distance, staying detached—that was the path of the immortal.
Time stretches too far for bonds to last, and the weight of loss becomes unbearable.
So they pull away, watching from afar, letting the world pass them by like wind over empty fields.
But I was not like them. I was not stone, cold and unfeeling, untouched by the years. The world still reached me, still shaped me. I could not pretend to be an unmoving pillar while the tides of time crashed against me.
I felt the pull of connection, the ache of closeness. Even knowing it would end, even knowing time would take and take until nothing remained, I still reached out.
Distance was not safety—it was just another kind of death.
The faceless girl reached for me.
And I let her.
A single hand against my chest, pressing lightly over my heart. Not warm, not cold. Just there.
A touch that wasn't meant to comfort or harm. A touch that simply confirmed that I was real. That I was here.
The moment stretched, longer than it should have. The dream unraveled around me, the edges fading, dissolving into the formless dark. But she remained.
The last thing to disappear.
The last thing I held onto.
And then I was awake.
A tear slipped down my face. I wiped it away—not with my hands, but with my wing, the movement slow, absent.
The tears didn't stop. They kept falling, streaming down my face in silent, steady drops.
I hated this pain. I thought it again and again.
I shouldn't feel this way! Why do I feel this way?
And yet—I wanted to be close to her. To Ryllie. To all of them. I wanted to live with them. I wanted to be stronger.
But the fear wouldn't leave me.
That nagging fear that no matter what I did, I would never amount to anything. That no matter how hard I fought, how hard I struggled, it would end the same.
Like I had already seen my own future.
One I couldn't change, no matter what.
One that had already been planned out.
And I was simply playing my part.