Empty Hands
The road back to Crimson Fang was quiet except for the steady sound of hoofbeats on the damp earth. The once-vibrant forest now felt like an oppressive labyrinth, the trees looming like silent witnesses to their failure. Isla rode in silence, her shoulders slumped as though the weight of the world pressed down on her. Every step forward felt like another nail in the coffin of hope.
“We’ve failed,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the crunch of gravel beneath her horse’s hooves. Her silver hair fell like a curtain around her face, shielding her tears from view. “We should’ve found something. Anything.”
Draven slowed his horse to ride beside her, his amber eyes fixed on her face. His frustration was clear, but his voice was measured. “It’s not over, Isla,” he said firmly, though his own despair clung to the edges of his words. “We’ll find them. No matter how long it takes.”
“Will we?” she asked bitterly, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon. “Micah wouldn’t just disappear. Not with them. And yet, we’re back where we started.”
Draven reached for her reins, stopping her horse. “Listen to me,” he said, his tone sharp yet filled with an undercurrent of desperation. “We don’t give up. They’re out there, and we’ll bring them home. I swear it.”
His intensity made her chest tighten, and for a brief moment, Isla clung to his words. But as they approached the gates of Crimson Fang, the packhouse looming in the distance, that fleeting hope began to crumble.
Inside their quarters, Isla collapsed onto the bed, her body trembling with exhaustion and grief. She stared blankly at the ceiling, memories of her children and Micah swirling in her mind. Her guilt was relentless. She should have gone with them. She should have done more.
Draven sat beside her, his large hand resting on her back. He didn’t speak—there was nothing he could say to ease her pain—but his presence was grounding. Still, the silence between them felt suffocating.
“I don’t know if I have the strength to fight further,” Isla whispered.
