Dawn came cold through the cracks. Y/N had learned to wake before it, to watch the light creep like a slow apology across the floorboards she'd swept clean that morning.

She was on the platform, arrows slung across her back, when the wind changed.

Branches cracked a quarter mile east. Heavy. Not deer.

Then a voice. Male. Rough with pain, but not desperate.

The underbrush broke open and a man stumbled through. Tall, white-haired, smeared with blood from shoulder to wrist. One arm held against his chest.

He stopped when he saw her. Didn't raise a weapon. Just stared.

Then he laughed. Quiet, almost surprised.