Page 137 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

Beside Brunna, Tavrin trembled dramatically, the mop head he’d tied over his horns bouncing as he shrieked in a high falsetto, “Dear knight! Save me!”

“You won’t have her!” tiny Wren roared. “Die, foul beast!” She lunged, ramming the spoon into Brunna’s ribs.

Brunna staggered, flapping her arms in overacted agony—then struck out with her ‘claws’, tickling Wren’s side in one last desperate swipe. Tavrin let out a theatrical wail as Wren collapsed to the ground, spoon flying from her grasp.

“The beast…is slain…” little Wren gasped. She crawled dramatically toward Tavrin, clutching her chest. “You’re free…never…forget me.” Then she let her head loll back, tongue sticking out of her mouth.

Tavrin dropped to his knees beside them, arms raised toward the heavens. “WHY?!” he shouted to the uncaring sky.

“Really?” Brunna sat up, quirking an eyebrow at him. “A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Wren giggled, sitting up and clutching her chest like she’d risen from the grave. Tavrin immediately threw his arms around her and cheered.

“She lives! The day is saved!”

The memory dissolved in drifting sparks—laughter fading, sunlight dimming, until only the fire at Stillglen remained, crackling softly in the night. Wren pulled her hand back slowly, pulse unsteady, still thrumming with the joy and grief that knotted together in her chest.

Orzen hadn’t moved, but his eyes opened, fixed on her with an expression she couldn’t read—raw in a way she’d never seen before. Something bright and fragile flashed before he blinked and swallowed it down. She wrapped her arms around herself. Maybe he simply wasn’t used to sharing memories yet.

“It’s strange the first time,” she explained, voice low. “Being in someone else’s head. It feels different when it’s your own memories.”

He nodded, shoulders loosening, though his voice stayed rough. “Right. It was strange. But—” His mouth worked once, twice, before the words finally came. “I kinda loved it.”

She laughed, a thin, broken sound threaded with joy. “We were ridiculous. I’m pretty sure Brunna roaring like a dragon was the moment Tav fell in love with her. He always complained about being the maiden, but he still agreed every single time.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Orzen chuckled. “He made a great maiden.”

She sniffled through a smile. “He really did.”

With Tavrin, she’d been able to be brave, to be silly, and not worry about what other people thought of her. She’d spent so long softening who she was since then that she’d almost forgotten that part of her. Seeing it again was like a gentle tug on her horn—a reminder that he still saw her that way, that she could still be that version of herself.

Then her expression softened. “I thought grief had taken this from me, like it took everything else, but it didn’t.” She wiped her face and took an unsteady breath. “I can’t stay trapped in the moment I lost him. Tav was so much more than that, and I almost let it disappear.”

“The bad has a way of clinging to you if you let it.”

His words carried the weight of experience, but he didn’t say more. He rubbed the grit from his eyes, pulling out the waterskin and handing it over. She drank, watching him over the rim. Exhaustion dragged at him, though he tried to hide it.

“You need rest,” she murmured.

“I’m fine.” He shook his head immediately, stretching like he could outrun tiredness through sheer will alone. “Long day, but you’re awake now, so it’s not so bad.”

“Orzen.” She raised one brow. “You can’t protect me if you fall asleep holding your sword.”

His shoulders sagged, the truth cracking through whatever stubbornness he’d been clinging to. “You wake me if you need something. Promise me.”

“I promise.” She gave him a small smile. “Now go to sleep.”

He searched her face for a long moment, weighing her words like they mattered more than they should. Then he finally lowered himself onto his bedroll, pulling a thin blanket over his shoulders. His eyes slipped shut. His breathing steadied. Sleep claimed him in seconds.

Stillglen breathed around them—quiet and green—a small mercy in the vastness of the Virewood. The others slept hard, the kind of sleep only fear and miles could carve out of someone. Wren tucked her hooves beneath her and watched him—a quiet moment of peace in a forest that was too loud.

Chapter 36

Lanternmoon Rising

Stillglen shimmered peacefully in the early light, the hush comforting but as fragile as a soap bubble. Wren hadn’t remembered falling asleep. When she stretched, Tavrin’s travel journal slid from her chest and fell open on a sketch he’d drawn—an immense waterfall, structures built into the cliff-face, his neat hand labeling it Elaren’s Braid.

The pain was still there, but Branwynn was right. The journal reminded Wren that he’d existed. That he’d mattered. She could almost see him here now, plopping down on the moss to sketch the steaming spring, grinning like he was capturing some secret only he ever understood.