Not a goodbye.
And there stood Kael.
Elara’s hands trembled around the painted stone. “I couldn’t. If I said goodbye, it would be real.” nalvas
She climbed the Nalvas pass on the solstice, when the mist was thick as wool. She carried no weapon, no charm—only a single smooth stone that Kael had given her as a child, painted with a crooked sun. Not a goodbye
She did not return to carving headstones. ” it said. “That’s the toll.”
The Nalvas smiled—Kael’s smile, but older, wiser, as if he had lived the seven years she had denied him. “That’s the answer,” it said. “That’s the toll.”