Duck Lake The last of kings

Gjalla’s breath caught as he spoke her name. It struck her like a physical blow, a flicker of something too sharp to name rushing through her chest. For a fleeting moment, she almost reached out, her body reacting before her mind could catch up.

The sound of him—his voice, so familiar, so foreign—brought the world to a standstill. The syllables rolled from his tongue as if they belonged there, as if no time had passed since she last heard them. But the hesitation in his voice, the fractured way he stumbled over his words—it made her pause. 

Her heart pounded louder than the wind, and her eyes never left his as he took that uncertain step forward. Her brow twitched, eyes gleaming with what she knew only as discontent.

She let the silence stretch between them, thick with the weight of shared history and the chasm of time that had pulled them apart. It wasn’t anger that swelled in her chest, nor sadness, but something far more complex—an aching kind of relief mixed with a frustration she hadn’t known how to voice.

The Vahaelarr she had known had been fire and fury, pride and conviction. This wolf before her—his hesitation, his expression—he was something else entirely, and she didn’t know whether to trust it.

And so, she faltered for the first time. The sharpness of her face wavered before it returned with a growl. "What are you doing here?"