Anisiya stood. Her knees were raw. Her heart beat once, twice, thrice—a slow, astonished rhythm. She looked at Pavel’s crumpled form, then at the ash billet lying harmless on the ground, its fibres unbroken, its shape now neither straight nor curved but free .
He fell without a sound. Like wood.
“Hold this,” he said, not looking at her. Woodman Casting Anisiya
Because something in that clearing had finally learned to scream. Anisiya stood
Now, kneeling in the soot-stained snow, Anisiya made a decision softer than a breath. She did not pull her hands away. She did not cry out. She simply stopped resisting —not the wood, but the shape Pavel was forcing upon it. its fibres unbroken