The Honor That Remained

I had another strange dream.

I was standing in the healer's den. Not as Thorn, but as myself.

The fire had begun to burn low in the pit, casting the den in deep shades of gold and brown. Flower was sorting ingredients for a meal. Storm was sitting with his legs crossed beside the fire, stroking his beard in thought as he stared into the flames.

For a moment, I found myself smiling a little at the scene. The fire warmed my skin, the den smelled faintly of herbs and whatever Flower was preparing, and Storm's calm and quiet presence made it all feel strangely familiar.

I felt cozy and safe.

Then Rain shoved his way through the hide hanging over the entrance with a large, hulking shape thrown across his shoulders. I made out a pair of legs and an arm that hung limply down his back.

It was a person.

"I need pelts!" he barked as he made his way further into the den.

Flower jumped. Storm simply turned his head.

"How many?" Flower asked as she collected herself, "What type?"

"Whatever we can spare," Rain replied quickly, "Try looking for lynx!"

Flower spread a large bear pelt across the floor as Storm helped Rain shift the limp figure off of his shoulders, gently lowering them onto it and moving them closer to the fire. Small chunks of ice and snow fell from the person's hair as they did so, rapidly melting into large drops of water in the warmth of the den.

I felt myself freeze as Rain and Storm got them settled, and my eyes grew wide as I made out the person's features. Long brown hair. Tan skin. Dark freckles. Muscular build. Old, tattered lynx furs. Hazel eyes.

Flower let out a surprised screech as she recoiled slightly before she composed herself.

"Is that Thorn?" she asked.

Her question went unanswered as Rain worked to remove his partially frozen furs and Storm positioned himself near his head.

Flower took one of his hands into hers and immediately dropped it.

"He's so cold!" she gasped, "What happened?"

"He fell into the lake," Rain answered, "He's been in the water too long. We need to bring his temperature back up. Quickly!"

"Right!"

Rain and Flower rushed to collect as many spare pelts as they could find while Storm continued to sit with Thorn, studying his face.

I felt my blood begin to boil as I stood there looking at him. I wanted to be angry, but the longer I watched, the more that feeling began to weaken.

Thorn wasn't shivering. His pupils were dilated, his eyes half open and unmoving. His chest barely moved with each shallow breath. Had it not been for that, I would have thought he was already dead.

"Hold on, Thorn," Flower pleaded as she began tucking pelts over and around his abdomen, "Think of Raven. Think of Shade. Just keep holding on!"

There was no response. No indication that he had even heard her.

Rain paused briefly, looking from Thorn to Storm.

"He's still alive," the shaman told him, still cradling Thorn's head in his hands, "Keep going."

A tension I hadn't noticed in my shoulders gradually released. The anger tightening my face slowly loosened, and my expression fell. This was the first time I'd actually gotten to see him from the outside - the bastard that was responsible for ripping me away from my life and my family - and here I was, feeling sorry for him.

Then he slowly turned his head, and his eyes met mine.

There wasn't any rage in his eyes. There wasn't any fear, desperation, relief, or any other kind of emotion that I expected to be there. They just seemed tired. Empty. Done.

Storm leaned closer, following Thorn's gaze into the empty space beside him.

"What do you see?" he whispered to him.

Thorn remained silent for several seconds.

Rain and Flower had moved closer to him.

Then he let out a quiet mumble.

"Not me... Him."

I felt my stomach drop as my shoulders went rigid again.

Thorn's eyes lost their focus as he drew in one last shuddering breath.

Something tightened around my chest.

Before I could move, or even draw a breath, I was being wrenched forward. The healer's den blurred around me as I lurched headlong towards Thorn's body.

I threw my arms in front of my face and squeezed my eyes shut.

When I opened them again, I was back in Bone's hut, lying across his bed.

For a moment, I just lay there, unsure if I'd just been given a fragment of a dead man's memory, or if it'd all been another dream.

I tried to find the strength to sit myself up. My eyes were swollen and burning, my head ached, my whole body felt like it'd been crushed beneath the pelt I was still wrapped in, and I was almost certain I looked about as much of a mess as I felt.

I cringed as a moment from the previous night replayed in my head, the sockeye salmon that had been resting in my hands and Bone's words to me before I'd allowed myself to completely fall apart.

"You've been carrying something heavy. Set it down for a while."

Tears threatened to spring into my eyes again as I took a deep breath and forced myself upright.

Sunlight pooled into the hut, more than just the early morning glow that I'd grown accustomed to waking up to. Beyond the entrance to Bone's hut, it was bright outside, and the village had already come to life with the sounds of foot traffic, casual chatter, and children at play.

It had to be the middle of the day by this point.

I glanced around and found Bone sitting beside his table, leaning back against the wall behind him as he whittled away at a piece of wood.

"You drool," he stated without looking up.

Well, there's one way of saying good morning, I suppose...

"I do not," I said back to him.

Bone glanced up and pointed with his knife. "The pelt says otherwise."

I looked down, noting the damp spot where my face had been resting. My cheeks burned slightly, only to let it go in a weak chuckle as I made my way to my feet.

I settled myself on the other side of the table from Bone, wedging myself between it and a stack of firewood. I was unsure of what to do with myself. I knew I wasn't ready to return to Thorn's hut just yet, but I wasn't sure if I had it in me to pick up a tool and get back to work.

In front of the table, a pot sat suspended over the fire, and I could hear the faint sound of something bubbling inside.

"Need to cry still?" Bone asked as he flicked a chip of wood into the pit.

I shook my head. "No. I think I got most of that out of my system."

Bone let out a soft grunt as he passed me the waterskin from last night. Setting down the knife and wood in his hands, he stood up and pulled out a couple of bowls from the depths of one of his baskets. He ladled a portion of stew into one of them and passed it to me before fetching a serving for himself.

The comfortable silence between us returned. Bone passed me a knife and a block of wood, keeping my hands busy in between bites of my food. It was almost too comfortable, feeling less like a calm start to another workday and more like we were settling into a cozy weekend afternoon. Even after we'd emptied our bowls, Bone made no move to start on anything.

"Shouldn't we be getting to work?" I eventually piped up.

"We're not working today," Bone answered without looking up.

I raised a brow, "You're not working today?"

"No, we're not working today."

I blinked at him, "We can do that?"

Bone shrugged, "Already are."

A sense of unease churned in my gut at the idea of it. Bone still had a lot of extra work from the far-hunters to complete under whatever deadline they had given him. I didn't want to risk him getting into trouble with the rest of the tribe just to give me an extra day to breathe.

"I'm fine, Bone," I said to him, "Really. If there's anything we still need to do-"

Bone cut me off by jamming the tip of his knife against the surface of the table and giving it a slight twist.

"David..." he began, "You collapsed yesterday. On more than one occasion. You let your feet carry you until you could barely stand, and you cried here until your body had officially given out. We're not working today."

Bone paused to take a steadying breath.

"I admire your dedication, but there's no honor in working yourself to death. Today, we rest."

He lifted the knife from the table and continued whittling. I watched him for a moment, waiting for him to change his mind. He didn't.

I looked down at the partially carved block of wood still sitting between my hands.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked.

Bone shrugged again. "Whatever you want."

I turned the wood over, trying to decide on the shape I wanted to give it. "What are you going to make?"

"A bear," Bone said, holding up his own piece of wood.

I squinted at it. One end had been rounded into a shape that vaguely resembled a head, and four short legs had started to emerge from the bottom. I could kind of see it.

I bit back a smile and studied my own block. After a moment, I set the edge of my knife against one corner and carefully shaved away a thin strip. Then another. And then another.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Outside the hut, the village carried on without us. Voices drifted past, sometimes close enough for me to make out a few words before they faded along on their way. A group of children laughed somewhere nearby. At one point, a pair of hunters crossed in front of the entrance, making both of us lift our heads momentarily as one of them told the other about some tracks they had found near the river. Then they too faded into the distance.

No one came looking for us. No one demanded to know why we weren't somewhere outside working. The world hadn't fallen apart because we had stopped moving.

Every so often, Bone would reach for the waterskin or some dried meat and pass me a portion. Occasionally, one of us would add another log to the fire when it began to weaken, then we'd return to our spot at the table and continue carving as though it were the only task we'd been given for the day.

I slowly started to understand why Bone had called it rest.

I wasn't doing nothing. My hands were still occupied. Handling the knife still required enough attention to keep my thoughts from drifting too far, but there was no urgency behind any of it. There wasn't anyone waiting for me to finish. There wasn't anything that depended on the wood in my hands becoming anything at all.

By the time my block had started to take shape, I still had no idea what I was making. It had four uneven legs, a thick body, and something that might eventually become a tail. One side of its head was noticeably flatter than the other.

Bone looked it over. "What is it?"

I shrugged, "I don't know yet."

He let out a soft snort as the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.

"Good start."

I chuckled as I shaved another piece off of its back.

The warmth of the fire gradually settled into my bones. Between that, the food in my stomach, and our knives against the wood, my eyelids started to feel heavy again.

I tried to fight it at first.

Bone noticed.

"You're falling asleep," he said.

"No, I'm not," I muttered lazily.

"You've nearly carved your thumb."

I looked down. The edge of my knife was resting dangerously close to it.

"I just woke up," I stated, setting my knife and the unfinished figure on the table, "I slept through half of the day."

Bone nodded, "And you cried through half of the night."

I opened my mouth, but my mind failed to form an argument that could compete with Bone's observation.

He pointed towards the bed with his knife.

I stared at him. "Seriously?"

"You're no help to me if you're unconscious at my table," he pointed out.

"I thought we weren't working today."

"We're not, but you'd still bleed on my floor."

I let out a reluctant sigh. I couldn't help but think back to the partially skinned deer that had been hanging in front of Bone's hut back when I first visited his property. Bone had said something similar then too the morning after I'd spent all night nesting.

Getting back to my feet, I lowered myself onto the bed and pulled the pelt I'd left behind earlier over my shoulders.

"I'm not going to sleep," I warned.

Bone let out a quiet grunt. "Of course you aren't."

I closed my eyes anyway and focused on the sound of his knife steadily scraping from across the hut. I listened to it for a while. I couldn't recall exactly when the sound had stopped.

When I opened my eyes again, the light outside had shifted. It no longer poured directly through the entrance, and a deeper shade of orange had begun to settle over the hut.

Bone was still sitting at the table, his bear looking much more like a bear now.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. My body felt lighter than it had before. The burning ache behind my eyes had dulled, and the heaviness in my limbs didn't feel quite as crushing.

For the first time in days, I actually felt rested.

Then my mind went back to the healer's den.

Thorn's half-open eyes stared through me again.

"Not me... Him."

I swallowed, pulling the pelt higher against my chest.

He had seen me.

Somehow, before I ever came close to entering his body, Thorn had known that I was there.

I turned my head back towards the table, watching Bone use the tip of his knife to clear loose chips and strips of wood from the surface.

I remembered what he had told me when we first met. He had worked with Thorn before. More than once. He had offered him jobs, giving him chance after chance to prove himself, and Thorn had repaid him by repeatedly breaking Bone's trust in him.

Even then, Bone had tried again. With me. Before he knew I wasn't really Thorn.

He had managed to take a look at Thorn apparently returning to his property and decided to give him another chance. As though some small part of him still wanted to see if Thorn could finally get it right.

"Can I ask you something?" I inquired, pushing myself upright.

Bone glanced over his shoulder. "You just did."

I frowned at him.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly before he turned back towards the table. "Go ahead. Ask."

I pulled the pelt around my shoulders and rested my back against the wall.

"You said you used to give Thorn work to do..."

Bone froze.

"You said that he wasn't always lazy," I continued, "That he worked hard when he wanted something, but that he stopped trying..."

Bone remained quiet as his shoulders stiffened.

"You knew what he was like. You knew he probably wasn't going to change, but you kept giving him more chances anyway."

"Mhm, too many..." Bone murmured.

"So why did you keep offering?"

Bone leaned forward and rested his forearms against his knees as he stared into the fire. For a moment, I thought I had overstepped as I watched him rub one hand over his jaw, causing the stubble on his chin to make a light scratching sound.

After several drawn out seconds, he finally let out a sigh.

"I wasn't always a hunter..." he began, "Before that, I was a soldier."

I blinked.

Bone was certainly large enough to have been one. He had the strength for it. I had seen how quickly he could move whenever a tool slipped or something threatened to fall. Still, it was hard to imagine him carrying any sort of weapon instead of a carving knife.

"For this tribe?" I asked.

Bone nodded as he reached for the unfinished bear and slowly turned it in his hands.

"I was born in the Tribe of the Mountain Forest," he continued, "Fought for it when I was younger. Not much younger, mind you, but younger nonetheless."

I shifted underneath the pelt as I watched him. "What happened?"

Bone swung a thumb in the direction of the mountain that loomed over the village.

"The Tribe of the High Mountains happened."

A faint chill ran through me as Bone leaned back against the wall.

"Their territory is surrounded by other tribes on nearly every side. Behind them, there's nothing but the summit. Stone, ice, and snow. There isn't much room to hunt, and there are seasons when hardly anything grows. Trade posts help a little, but it's nowhere near enough to sustain them."

"So they came down here looking for food?"

Bone scowled, "They came here looking for whatever they could carry back with them."

His thumb traced along the arch of the wooden bear's unfinished back.

"It wasn't a battle. Not a proper one, at least. They descended on the village before most of us knew they were coming. They raided our food stores, took tools, hides, medicine. Anything they thought might help them survive another season."

"What did you do?" I asked.

Bone let out a soft grunt. "What I was trained to do. I fought."

His expression hardened as he stared deeper into the fire.

"I had already seen a fair share of bloodshed by then, but the High Mountain soldiers fought differently from us. They had been trained from childhood. They moved quickly, struck hard, and didn't waste time on anyone who wasn't standing between them and what they wanted."

He set the wooden bear back down on the table.

"One of them caught me across the side."

Bone hooked a finger beneath the hem of his tunic and lifted it, exposing a thick, ragged scar on his left side that stretched from the middle of his ribs down to just above his hip. I'd noticed portions of it before, but I had never known how far it went.

"I managed to kill the soldier who gave it to me," Bone continued, "But I was unable to stay on my feet afterward. I tried, but my body had other plans."

My stomach tightened.

"I was lying between two huts when I saw him..."

It didn't take long for my mind to catch up to what, or rather who , Bone was talking about.

"Breaker."

Bone nodded, "I had heard the name long before that day. Every warrior had. The Tribe of the High Mountains had many soldiers, but only one Breaker."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"People spoke of him as though he were something more than just flesh and blood. A warrior who never hesitated, never retreated, and never spared anyone that stood in his path. Some stories claimed he could tear through half of a hunting party by himself."

I thought of Thorn as I had seen him in the healer's den in my dream. Cold. Motionless. Empty.

I considered Bone's story, then considered myself.

"How old was he back then?" I asked.

Bone paused. "Seventeen... Eighteen at most."

My brow furrowed. "That young?"

"He had likely been trained from the time that he could walk," Bone explained, "By the time we met, he had already earned the kind of reputation most soldiers spend their entire lives chasing."

He glanced down at his carving.

"I remember looking up at him and thinking I was already dead."

I tried to fit the lifeless therian from my dream to the image Bone had created; Thorn standing tall among the High Mountain soldiers, shoulders squared, a weapon grasped firmly in his hands.

I could picture the posture. The strength. The reputation that had reached Bone long before Breaker himself ever did.

But I couldn't make it look like Thorn.

"What did he do?" I asked.

The hut fell quiet as Bone's fingers unconsciously gravitated to the scar beneath his tunic.

"He lowered his weapon," he said slowly, "Then he dragged me through the village and he dropped me at the feet of one of our healers."

My eyes widened. At that moment, I heard Blaze's words replaying themselves in my head.

"You were brutal. Ruthless... but fair when it counted... You followed the code. You wouldn't attack anyone who couldn't fight back. Wounded soldiers, healers..."

Bone's story about this battle made those words make a lot more sense now. Brutal, ruthless, but fair. Bone had been wounded during the raid, so Breaker saw no reason to attack him. Hell, he'd been more than just fair. He went out of his way to bring him to a healer. He'd not only spared his life. He'd saved it.

"But someone saw him..." Bone said, making my stomach drop, "One of his own."

"Was that why he was exiled?" I asked.

Bone's hand closed around the wooden bear.

"No... The other soldier ordered him to finish me. When Breaker refused, they argued. The soldier accused him of betraying his tribe. Said that he was weak. Told him that the stories about him had all been lies."

I went still beneath the pelt as Bone paused.

"When the soldier drew his weapon and started to come towards me, Breaker stepped between us."

I could almost see it. Bone lying beside the healer, the raid tearing through the village around them, and a young Breaker standing between him and one of his own people.

"They fought," Bone continued, "It didn't last long."

"Breaker killed him?" I asked.

Bone nodded again, his fingers tightening around the wooden figure until it nearly disappeared inside of his fist.

"He didn't look proud of it. He didn't seem frightened, either. He simply looked at the rest of the High Mountain soldiers that were gathering around him, then back at me... Then he ran. Luckily for me, the rest of them gave chase."

Bone relaxed his hand and studied the figure in his palm, checking for damage.

"The raid ended not long afterward. The High Mountain soldiers withdrew with whatever they had managed to take, and I was left to wonder what had happened to the boy who had saved my life."

"You thought they had killed him," I commented, "But... What about the code? Blaze said something about a code."

A harsh glare settled on Bone's face.

"They teach the code, but most of the High Mountain Tribe only follows it when it benefits them," he growled, "They don't tolerate mercy towards an enemy. Breaker's disobedience had been bad enough. But killing one of their own to protect me...? I was certain that they'd killed him for that. I spent the next couple weeks believing he had traded his life for mine while I recovered."

My brow furrowed, "Weeks?"

"Weeks. He showed up at the North Gate one day with Watcher and a few others who had chosen to go into exile with him."

"Why?"

Bone's gaze softened slightly. "Because they stood by Breaker and his decision."

I looked down at the pelt gathered around my waist.

All this time, I had tried to imagine the kind of man Thorn might have been before everything went wrong. I had searched for something that explained how Raven could have loved him, why Light had welcomed him, and why Bone had continued offering him work long after everyone else had given up.

I hadn't imagined this.

"What happened when he came here?" I asked.

Bone was quiet for a moment before a small laugh escaped him.

"He struggled," he said, "Different culture, different upbringing... He didn't understand the what or why of a lot of our customs for a while. But he tried. He was given the name Thorn by Light, he met Raven, built his hut, and did his best to adjust."

I thought about that for a minute.

Thorn did his best. He'd tried to adjust.

So what happened?

"And you?" I asked.

Bone drew in a slow breath. His eyes drifted away from me, settling somewhere beyond the walls of his hut.

"I had never been so relieved to see someone alive again."

Something ached quietly inside of my chest.

"He had saved my life and destroyed his own in the process," he continued, "Everything he had ever known had been stripped away from him, and I found myself wanting to help him in any way that I could."

I glanced at the unfinished bear resting in his hand.

"So you kept giving him work."

"Work, food, reasons to get out of his hut and keep trying," Bone's gaze fell again, "Every time he failed, I told myself I owed him another chance. Every time he lashed out, I thought of the boy that once put himself between me and one of his own soldiers. I often found myself saying that if I didn't keep offering him another chance, nobody else in this tribe would. He would have been completely and utterly alone."

His jaw tightened.

"By the time I came to realize that the man standing in front of me was no longer the boy I remembered, I had already forgiven far more than I should have."

Neither of us spoke for a while.

Then Bone ran his thumb across the wooden bear's back.

"I knew there was honor in him once," he said quietly, "I just wanted to see it come back again."

The silence settled between us again. Bone kept his eyes on the wooden bear, but his hands had gone still around it, and I got the feeling that he wasn't seeing the carving at all anymore.

Bone had been carrying that for years. The raid. The wound. The teenage soldier that had dragged him through the village while his own people tore it apart. Breaker planting himself between Bone and one of his own, knowing exactly what that decision could cost him.

Every time Bone had offered Thorn another chance, he had been looking past the man standing in front of him and seeing the boy who had saved his life.

That was a long time to wait for someone to come back.

I pulled the pelt more tightly around my shoulders.

"I had a dream about him last night," I said.

Bone's thumb stopped as he lifted his eyes toward me. "About Thorn?"

I nodded.

His posture shifted as he set the wooden bear on the table. "What happened?"

I hesitated, trying to decide where to begin.

"I was in the healer's den..." I started, "Rain carried Thorn inside. He was unconscious. At least, I think he was. Flower and Rain tried to warm him up, but he wasn't responding to anything they said."

Bone's expression tightened.

"I was standing near them," I continued. "Not as Thorn. I looked like myself."

Bone leaned forward slightly.

"They couldn't see me, but Thorn could."

Bone's eyes widened. "You're certain?"

I nodded again. "He looked directly at me."

The emptiness in Thorn's eyes returned to my mind. He hadn't seemed surprised or confused to see me there. Just tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep could touch, but something deeper. Something final.

"Storm noticed him staring," I said. "He asked Thorn what he saw."

Bone waited.

"All he said was, 'Not me... Him.'"

The hut fell silent.

Bone stared at me from across the fire.

"Then something grabbed me," I continued. "It pulled me into his body. When I opened my eyes again, I was back here."

For several seconds, Bone didn't move. Then his eyes drifted toward the fire as his brow slowly furrowed.

"He knew..." he murmured.

Bone leaned back against the wall. His gaze moved over me, studying my face with an intensity that made me uneasy.

"He saw you," he said. "Before you entered his body."

I shrugged, "That's what the dream seemed to show me."

"And he chose you?"

My stomach tightened.

"We don't know for sure," I told him, "Storm thinks Thorn allowed me inside, and that's how I got here."

Bone's eyes narrowed. "And now you've seen Thorn looking directly at you before it happened."

I looked down at my hands. "I don't know why he'd choose me."

"I do."

The certainty in Bone's voice made me look up again.

He reached for the wooden bear but didn't resume carving. He simply held it between his palms.

"You work without being chased," he said. "You finish what you start. You take only what you need, and you make certain everyone around you is taken care of before you worry about yourself."

I shifted uncomfortably. "Bone-"

"You cleaned Thorn's hut. You cared for his son. You faced Raven and told her the truth even though you knew she might not listen to you."

His voice softened.

"You were given every reason to be angry with this tribe, and you still looked for ways to become part of it."

My gaze dropped to the floor. "I'm not perfect."

"Didn't say that you were."

Bone's mouth twitched faintly.

"You work until you collapse, refuse to rest unless someone orders you, and apparently you believe sleeping for half a day is some kind of moral failure."

I frowned. "I do not..."

Bone gave me a flat look.

I paused for a moment before rolling my eyes and letting out a sigh. "All right. Maybe a little."

His expression softened again.

"Thorn didn't choose someone who was perfect," he said. "He chose someone who fit. Someone who would try."

The words landed harder than I expected.

I looked toward the entrance, where the last of the afternoon light stretched across the floor.

"What does that say about him?" I asked quietly.

Bone lowered his eyes to the bear.

"That he knew he had stopped trying... Or perhaps that he simply couldn't find it in himself to keep trying anymore."

Something twisted inside my chest.

For a moment, all I could see was Thorn lying beside the fire. Flower begging him to think of Raven and Shade. Rain hovering nearby after carrying him all the way from the lake.

And Thorn looking past all of them to look at me.

"He thought I could replace him," I murmured.

Bone shook his head. "I think he believed you could improve on what he left behind."

I recoiled slightly. "That isn't much better."

"No, it isn't. It wasn't fair to you. But it may have been the first honest decision he'd made in a long time."

I stared down at the unfamiliar hands resting in my lap.

"I don't want to be a better version of Thorn," I stated with a scowl.

"You aren't."

Bone's answer came without hesitation.

I looked at him.

"You're David," he said. "That's probably why he chose you."

My throat tightened.

Bone studied me for another moment before his gaze fell.

"All this time," he murmured, "I thought he had abandoned the good that had been inside of him."

The wood in the fire shifted, sending a small cluster of sparks upward.

"But he hadn't," I said.

Bone's jaw tightened.

"No," His hand closed gently around the wooden bear. "He saw someone who deserved to live, and he spared him."

The words sent a chill through me.

Just as Breaker had once looked down at a wounded enemy and lowered his weapon, Thorn had looked at me and made a choice.

Only this time, he hadn't just dragged me to a healer. He had given me the only life left that'd been within his reach.

Bone drew in an unsteady breath. A wet gleam had appeared in his eyes. He blinked quickly and turned his attention towards the fire.

"I suppose I finally have my answer," he said.

I watched him rub his thumb against one corner of the carving.

He had spent years waiting to see whether some part of Breaker still existed inside Thorn. Now that he knew, he looked relieved. And devastated.

"Now you don't have to keep waiting for him," I said.

Bone went still as the words hung in the air between us.

"He's gone," I continued carefully. "Whatever he expected me to do with his life, he took that risk. He made that choice."

Bone's eyes closed.

"But the person you remembered," I said, staring into the fire, "The boy who saved you... I think he was still there when it mattered."

Bone bowed his head as the wooden bear trembled faintly between his hands.

For a while, he didn't say anything. His breathing remained steady, but only because he seemed to be forcing it to.

I gave him the same silence he had given me the night before.

Eventually, he lifted one hand and rubbed roughly across his eyes. When he looked at me again, they were red around the edges.

"He was right," Bone said.

"About what?" I asked, raising a brow.

"You."

A lump formed in my throat.

Bone looked down at the bear once more.

"He couldn't have known everything you would do," he continued. "But he must have seen enough."

I didn't know how to answer that.

Part of me still wanted to be angry. Thorn had torn me away from my home, trapped me inside his body, and left me to repair damage I hadn't caused.

But beneath that anger was something quieter.

Thorn had seen me.

Not as a tool. Not as a body he could steal or a spirit he could displace.

He had seen who I was and decided I could do what he believed he was no longer capable of doing.

I wasn't ready to forgive him. But for the first time, I felt like I was beginning to understand him.

I pushed the pelt aside and returned to the table. Bone handed my unfinished carving back to me without a word.

I accepted it and settled into my place across from him.

After several seconds, Bone picked up his knife.

"So," I said as I examined the crooked creature in my hands, "Does this mean you're going to stop comparing me to him?"

Bone considered it briefly.

"No." he answered bluntly.

I frowned.

Bone's mouth lifted into a tired smile. "You're much worse at carving."

A startled laugh escaped me.

His eyes still shone in the firelight, but he made no effort to hide them this time.

Then we lowered our heads and returned to the wood.

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