The stars are still there when I look up again. Somewhere along the way, hours passed.
We've been lying here shoulder to shoulder on a mattress that smells of dew, grass, and linen dried in mountain air. I haven't noticed the time passing. Haven't felt the minutes crawl.
The sky swallowed them whole, and I let it. That's the thing about silence like this. It doesn't just empty the world.
It empties you too.
And for a while—for the first time in longer than I can remember—the hollow inside my chest didn't feel like a wound.
It just felt like space.
But the cold is changing now.
It started as a whisper against my skin—barely there, easy to ignore. Now it's sharper. More insistent. I can feel the dew gathering at my throat, cold against my skin. Like the sky itself is leaning down to kiss me there.
I turn my head.
Silas is still looking up.
