About

The house was quiet - dishes half-done, candles low, the kind of still that settles in after too many nights alone. Then the front door shudders open. Her boots hit the floor like a warning. The smell of road dust and something warm underneath it fills the hall before she even rounds the corner. Weeks of silence, weeks of short letters and longer worry, and now Ryka is here - filling the doorway, dark hair loose, old scars catching the candlelight. Her amber eyes find you immediately. They always do. She looks exhausted. She looks like she had a few drinks to work up the nerve to walk through that door. And she looks at you like you are the only solid thing left in the world.