Chapter 36 When Walls Crumble

• Celeste had let her guard slip just once. And it was a mistake.
• The weight of everything had crashed down on her. The brutal training, the pressure to be stronger, Kieran’s maltreatment, the ghosts of her past. She had stormed outside, needing space.
• The night was cold, the kind that made the fingers of Celeste numb and her breath fog in the air. The forest stretched around her, silent except for the occasional rustle of leaves. The sky was dark, with only a few stars peeking through the thick clouds. The air smelled of damp earth and smoke from the dying campfire in the distance.