Azura's POV
Most of the warriors were already asleep.
I could hear it in the way the camp had gone quiet. The kind of quiet that only comes when people have finally stopped fighting exhaustion and let it take its toll. Slow breathing. Still bodies. Even the warrior on watch had gone from alert to barely holding his eyes open.
I was the only one still awake.
I lay on my back and stared up at the gaps in the branches above me. The feeling in my chest was still there. That same heavy wrong thing that had been sitting inside me since we made camp. I had tried to talk myself out of it for hours. It was not working.
Liona was asleep beside me. Completely gone. One hand tucked under her head, breathing like she was home in a proper bed and not in the middle of a forest that had already eaten someone's memory. I watched her for a moment and decided not to hold it against her.
I shifted onto my side and closed my eyes.
Then something touched my hand.
I opened my eyes.
