Chapter 64 The Weight of an Empty Seat

The inn’s common room smelled of hearth fire and roasted grain. Morning light slipped through the tall windows, washing the tables in gold. Outside, the forest whispered faintly with the sway of branches, but here the stillness was heavier, like a silence that pressed on the chest.

The girls entered together, hair still damp from the baths, clothes clinging faintly with steam and warmth. None spoke as they crossed the wooden floor. Their eyes were shadowed from the night before, their steps slow, like each foot carried the weight of a missing person.

Behind the counter, Helena worked with sleeves rolled, hair bound back into a knot that revealed streaks of gray among the red. She moved quickly, setting bowls and platters in neat rows, her motions steady but her eyes following the four figures. The way their shoulders slumped, the way their gazes slid to the windows and the door—it told her everything before a word was spoken.

Mira appeared from the kitchen, balancing a tray almost too large for her slight frame. She hadn’t changed much since the last time the girls saw her. Her brown hair was still hopelessly untidy, sticking out in uneven tufts no matter how many times she tried to pat it down. Her soft dog ears twitched with every creak of the floorboards, one darker than the other, the left tipped with white. Her mismatched eyes caught the light—one warm brown, the other a startling pale blue that made her look always a little startled, even when she wasn’t. The cloth tied around her waist was already stained from work, and her arms trembled slightly with the weight she carried, but she set the tray down without complaint.

She glanced at them—at the empty space between their shoulders where someone should have been—and her ears flattened before she turned back toward the kitchen.

Helena broke the silence first. “Sit.” Her voice was firm, the way a mother might command her children. She gestured at the table she had already laid out. “Food won’t wait, and neither should you.”

The girls obeyed without a word. Chairs scraped softly against the wood as they settled.

Plates were filled with steaming bread, thick slices of roasted meat, eggs cooked until golden at the edges. Honey glistened in small pots beside bowls of porridge. It was more than enough to fill their stomachs—yet the sight of it made each of them falter.

Fara was the first to lower herself into her seat. She touched the edge of her plate with a trembling hand, her tails dragging low behind her. Her amber eyes flicked to the door, then the windows, and back again. Every sound from outside—the crunch of gravel, the creak of a cart—her ears twitched toward it, waiting. Hoping. But the doorway stayed empty. The silence mocked her. She raised a piece of bread but could not take a bite.

Skye sat across from her, staring hard at the food. Her lips pressed tight, as though she thought that if she just swallowed quickly enough, she wouldn’t notice how empty the seat beside her was. She forced down a bite, but her hand shook when she lifted her fork again. Her gaze darted to the door, mirroring Fara’s, as though if they both stared hard enough, Kai might simply step through.

Revoli folded herself onto the bench with none of her usual spark. Her pink hair stuck to her cheeks, still damp, and her eyes were already swollen from tears shed in the bath. She sniffed once, twice, and tried to chew a strip of meat—but the sob caught her first. Her shoulders shook, and soon she was pressing her face into her hands right there at the table, her food forgotten. Her cries were muffled, broken, but loud enough to echo in the rafters.

Patrona, ever the one to steel herself, sat apart at the end of the table. Her plate was untouched, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She wasn’t looking at the food, or at the windows, or even at Kai’s empty seat. She was looking inward, her thoughts circling the kiss that haunted her. She remembered the heat of it, the recklessness of letting her guard fall for just that heartbeat—and now the bitter weight of wondering how she could face him again. What would he see in her eyes? Weakness? Desperation? Something she could never take back? Her jaw tightened. She wanted to eat, to busy her hands, to do anything but sit in this suffocating quiet—but the food blurred before her, and she could not move.

Across the room, Helena set another pot of porridge on the counter, her eyes steady but heavy with something unspoken. Mira lingered behind her, wringing a cloth between her fingers, her mismatched eyes flicking nervously toward the sobbing Revoli. Neither of them stepped forward. Helena knew grief had to run its course. Comfort offered too quickly could be rejected just as quickly.

The table was full, yet the air around it was hollow. Each girl, in her own way, was reaching for Kai—through memory, through longing, through fear—and finding nothing but the echo of his absence.

Fara’s eyes shone as she pushed her plate away. Skye’s fork slipped from her fingers, clattering against the wood. Revoli sobbed harder, shoulders hunched like the smallest of children. Patrona pressed her lips together until they were bloodless, forcing the storm to stay locked inside.

Helena and Mira could only watch. The older woman crossed her arms, face stern but her eyes soft with pity. The younger girl stood frozen, ears drooping, caught between wanting to say something and knowing no words would mend what had been torn.

The morning stretched long. Food cooled, untouched, while the fire in the hearth burned low. The forest outside whispered on, indifferent. And inside, four girls sat around a table, staring into their plates, into the windows, into the silence—waiting for a man who did not walk through the door.