Sunset Valley Tell it to my heart,

she cannot breathe.
his voice is stone and winter and death, but she does not hear it—not truly. her children’s scents still cling to her: milk, blood, herbs. grief. she carries them all like chains. her body is gaunt, devoured by fear and flight. her soul has been starved and pulled thin, as fragile as parchment.
and now—him.
blackfell. war made wolf. his shape cuts through the fog, broad and bitter and familiar. and the moment she sees him—sees him—her knees buckle.
the weight of it all crashes from her body like snow torn from the cliffs. fa’liya. caan. the others. she does not remember how she moves. she only knows that she is collapsing, her ribs heaving, her sobs broken and wretched and animal.
—they—he— she cannot form the words.
her body surges forward as if driven by instinct alone, and she throws herself into him, burying her face into the armor of his shoulder. the scent of old blood and smoke and ash clings to him. it smells like home. like ruin. like everything she’s lost.
there are no speeches. no apologies. she is beyond pride.
her throat is raw from screaming. her shoulders quake. and all she can do is weep—ugly, choking sobs wrung from somewhere deep and holy. a queen shattered, broken down to the bones of a mother.
morwenna clings to blackfell like driftwood in a storm.
for the first time, there is no fury in her. only grief. only the sound of her heart breaking open.