The house was quiet again.

  After the chaos, the fighting, the rescue—there was peace.

  Myla rocked their baby in the corner while Ginish cleaned up the broken glass near the door.

  Rell sat by the open window, eyes half-closed, listening to the wind move through the trees outside.

  The baby giggled.

  It was real. Safe.

  Myla kissed the little girl’s forehead, smiled tiredly, then looked over at Rell.

  “You sure you don’t wanna rest a bit?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Just kept staring out the window.

  [RELL'S THOUGHTS]

  “This kind of peace… I forgot what it felt like.”

  “Ginish and Myla... they make it look easy.”

  “Makes me think of my parents.”

  “Did they ever sit like this, smiling over nothing?”

  “No. I wouldn’t know. They died too early.”

  “I never got this. Never got to be a son… not really.”

  “All I knew was the cold. The streets. The fights.”

  “But seeing this… it’s like looking through a window to a life I missed.”

  “Closest thing I had to a father in this world was that old lion.”

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  “Umbwe.”

  “Always pissed, always growling, but… he showed up.”

  “And I turned my back on him.”

  Ginish stepped into the frame, wiping his hands on a rag. “You’re thinkin’ heavy.”

  Rell grunted. “Maybe.”

  Ginish looked over at Myla and the baby, then back at Rell. “You know, kids don’t always get it. Not at first. They think when a parent says no, or gets loud, or pushes 'em to do better… that it’s hate. But it ain’t.”

  He sat beside Rell. “It’s ‘cause they give a damn. You don’t yell at what you don’t care about.”

  Rell didn’t look at him.

  “You two fight. So what? Hell, I fought my old man. Still loved the bastard.”

  Rell nodded once, slowly.

  Myla watched from across the room, silent but smiling.

  Ginish raised an eyebrow. “How you plan on gettin’ back there, exactly? That forest’s on the other damn side of the continent.”

  Myla chimed in, worried. “That’s like running from the southern border of the world all the way up past the spine of Azdros.”

  Ginish nodded. “What, twelve hundred klicks? That’s damn near a thousand miles, give or take.”

  Rell laced his boots tighter.

  “Still go.”

  Ginish blinked. “Rell... that’s five or six countries. Hills, rivers, magic storm zones—”

  “Run fast,” Rell said flatly. “Couple hours.”

  They both stared at him.

  Myla’s lips parted like she wanted to stop him—but instead, she looked down at their baby, resting safe in her arms.

  She smiled, quiet and tired.

  Ginish exhaled, half-laughing as he shook his head.

  “Well... guess we’ll know if the jungle starts shakin’.”

  Rell stepped into the wind, dusk falling around him like a cloak.

  His figure cut through the horizon as the grass bent in his wake.

  He ran.

  Not as a hero. Not as a beast.

  As a man who needed to make things right.