Absolute Devotion

Silas stood frozen before Sloane's tears, a tight ache blooming behind his sternum, as though someone had slipped an unfamiliar key into a locked chamber of his heart and turned.

In his memory, this woman was forged of iron—decisive, unswerving, made to chase thermals like an eagle above open sky. Never, not once, had he pictured her trembling beneath the weight of sorrow.

He exhaled, reached for