I found him by the river, just before dawn.

The sky was still caught between shadow and ash, the stars dying slowly overhead. He hadn’t heard me approach — or if he had, he was pretending not to. Alec sat on the broken stone edge, flame-gold hair mussed, boots muddied from last night’s blood. His cloak lay discarded in the grass beside him. He looked like a prince someone had tried to drown.

I almost turned back.

But he turned first.

His eyes found me — amber and wildfire, exhausted and sharp all at once. He said nothing. Just watched. Waited.

I hated that about him — how he could always tell when I was about to run.

I stepped closer. My heart felt too loud. “I’m leaving.”

His jaw shifted, but he didn’t flinch. “When?”

“Now.”

He nodded once, like he’d already guessed. He looked down at the water — rippling gold and black, like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.

I hated that, too. That he didn’t argue.

“I need to do this alone,” I said.

A muscle flicked in his cheek. “You don’t.”

“I do.”

“You’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

He looked up. “Of me?”

“No.”

A pause.

I swallowed. My throat burned. “Of what I’ll do if I stay.”

The Hollow Twin had whispered to me last night. Whispered in his voice. Touched his face with my hand, and wondered how fire would taste on his skin.

I couldn’t stay. Not like this. Not when love felt so close to ruin.

His voice dropped. “Tell me to follow you. I will.”

I shook my head.

“Tell me to stop you,” he said, softer now. “And I won’t.”

My fingers curled. My stormstone pendant pressed cold to my skin, as if Caelen’s magic still tried to tether me. But nothing could root me to this moment.

Not even him.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered.

“Then explain it.”

“If I say it out loud, I won’t go.”

His chest rose, fell. Then rose again — sharper this time, like he’d been holding something back.

He stood.

He didn’t touch me.

He just looked at me like I’d become the storm — beautiful, terrible, already gone.

“I’m not afraid of what’s inside you, Aria.”

I blinked.

He stepped closer, close enough that the heat of him curled around my cold skin.

“I’m afraid you’ll keep thinking you have to fight it alone.”

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to stay.

Instead, I stepped back.

And he let me.

When I turned, he didn’t follow.

And when I disappeared into the trees, I didn’t look back — not once.

But if I had…

…I know he would’ve been standing there still.