Seventeen days.
That's how long she remained unconscious.
Not in sleep. Not in rest.
Just. Still.
The thread behind my ribs never faded, never slackened—but it never pulsed either. It was like holding onto something buried under snow, hoping it might still be warm underneath.
We didn't stop moving.
For seventeen days and seventeen nights, we ran.
Not because we knew where we were going—but because we didn't have time to stop. Something was chasing us.
Every night it took a different form. Sometimes it was a shadow with no source, pacing the treeline. Other times it was a voice, mimicking our own, whispering from places we hadn't passed.
On the sixth day, we saw smoke on the horizon—our own camp, burning, even though we hadn't made it there yet.
On the ninth, Erich touched a broken wall and collapsed, aged by minutes or hours we couldn't measure.
Time itself was being bent around us—folded, tested.
It wasn't random.
It wanted us scattered.
It wanted us tired.
I kept remembering the name, Arbiter. It lingered in my mind, heavy but hollow. I didn't know what it meant, or who it belonged to. Only that since Helene's said it, the world had turned hostile in ways we couldn't explain.
Konrad led most of the time. Always silent. Always ahead. He moved like someone waiting for permission to break.
The rest of us followed without speaking.
We were all waiting for Clara. I kept count.
On the twelfth night, Erich collapsed from exhaustion. On the fifteenth, I used my thread just to buy us seconds. On the sixteenth, a tree blinked out of time and dropped a frozen flock of birds at our feet.
We didn't talk about it.
We just kept moving.
And then—
On the Seventeenth night, she stirred.
We had made camp on the outskirts of a crumbling town. No signs. No clocks. Just frost and half-buried bricks. I had barely slept.
Clara moved once. Then again.
I was next to her before her eyes opened.
They weren't the same.
Still flickering rose. Still hers.
But older now. Hollow in ways that had nothing to do with age.
She looked at me like she remembered everything.
I didn't speak.
She sat up slowly, her hands linear—cold. Erich stirred nearby. Konrad stood watch, but didn't turn.
Clara blinked at the horizon.
It was quiet.
For the first time in over two weeks, nothing had chased us.
No echo. No flicker. No trick of light.
Just wind.
She didn't speak. Not anymore.
I saw it, the edge of it in her eyes.
Something had broken.
Something had remembered.
***
I opened my journal later that night.
I hadn't touched it since the station.
I couldn't. Not while she was unconscious.
But now—
Now the silence made room.
The pages felt heavier than usual. Like something inside had waited longer than it should have.
I flipped past the thread's messages, past my half-written lines.
The ink was already there.
The Ember of Eternal Affection.
It wasn't glowing. It wasn't pulsing.
Just written.
Permanent.
I didn't cry. I didn't smile.
I just closed the book.
And let it rest.
***
We stayed in the same town for two more days.
None of us said it, but we needed the stillness.
Clara didn't speak. She moved slowly, deliberately, as if the world itself might shatter. She never mentioned what she saw. I didn't ask.
She carried the silence like a second shadow. Not refusal—A realization, that words couldn't reach where she had been.
Erich tried once.
"What happened to you?"
She looked at him for a long time. Blank faced.
Then simply lowered her head.
That was enough.
We didn't push again.
There was a weight to her presence now—something subtle, but immovable. Like she knew how many days she'd been gone, what each one had cost.
Konrad was the only one who hadn't looked at her since she woke. Not once. Not even when she brushed past him. He stood watch, ate in silence. He ran a cloth over the empty leather strap where his rifle used to rest. Like if he polished it long enough, the weapon might reappear—like memory alone could bring it back.
I noticed it that night—
His hands were shaking.
***
The next morning, I found Konrad outside the ruins of an old chapel. He wasn't praying. Just sitting at the top of the steps, staring into the fog like he expected something to step out of it.
I walked up slowly, boots crunching frost.
He didn't look at me.
"You've been avoiding her," I said.
He was quiet for a while.
"She needs time."
"That doesn't explain it."
He turned his head. The shadows under his eyes were deeper than I remembered. His voice was flat.
"There are some things… you can't protect people from."
There was weight in that.
I sat down beside him. The wind brushed through the ruined gate behind us.
"She's still there," I said.
Konrad didn't answer.
But I saw his hands curl tighter.
He was listening.
He just didn't know what to do with what he heard.
There was a long silence. Then, just above a whisper.
"I saw something."
I didn't move.
"What?" I asked.
His jaw flexed. "Back at the station. When we split."
He took a breath. It sounded like it hurt.
"There was someone. Looked like you. But not. Said things you hadn't said yet. Accused me of things I'd never done. Made me doubt every step I took."
I stayed quiet.
He looked down at his empty hands.
"Ever since then… it hasn't stopped. I still hear it. I still feel like I'm walking behind something I already failed to stop."
I didn't have an answer.
But I stayed there.
With him.
And for now, that had to be enough.