From that moment on, without solemn words being spoken, without any pact or vow uttered aloud, we had made a promise.
No more battles.
No more training.
On this land, we had decided it with a glance — only love and peace were allowed to exist.
And that, against all odds, awakened within me a feeling I barely recognized anymore.
A forgotten good.
The kind of relief that doesn't burst forth, but seeps in slowly, into every gesture, every breath, until it relaxes muscles you didn't even know were tense.
The simple act of walking without being in a constant state of alert, of not having to scan every shadow as a potential threat, of not feeling my fingers slide instinctively toward the hilt of a weapon — even an invisible one, even an absent one — was a disarming sort of calm, as if my body, suddenly stripped of tension, had to relearn what it meant to exist without fear.
I hadn't known how tired I was.
Not physically.
But deeply.
