44. Caelum
For once...
there is no weight.
No crown pressing into my skull. No expectations tightening around my chest. No voices telling me who I have to be before I even wake up.
Just wind.
Fast. Alive. Free.
I laugh.
Actually laugh.
The sound tears out of me without permission, carried away by the roar of the engine beneath us.
Rowan is in front of me, steady as always, his hands firm on the handlebars, his body relaxed in a way I’ve never seen inside palace walls.
I’m holding onto him.
Not carefully.
Not hesitantly.
Tightly.
Like I belong there.
“Hold on tighter!” he calls over his shoulder, his voice full of something reckless and bright.
I tighten my arms around his waist, pressing closer, my cheek brushing his back as the motorcycle surges forward.
The city blurs around us...lights, people, everything dissolving into streaks of color and motion.
I don’t care.
None of it matters.
All that matters is this.
Him.
The way he exists like the world has never tried to cage him.
The way I feel when I’m with him...like I’m not something fragile or breakable or controlled.
Just… alive.
We slow eventually.
Pulling to a stop somewhere I don’t recognize and don’t need to.
Rowan laughs softly as he cuts the engine.
“See?” he says, glancing back at me. “You didn’t die.”
I roll my eyes, breathless.
“I might have,” I reply. “I just didn’t have time to notice.”
He grins.
That stupid, perfect grin.
And something in my chest expands so fully it almost hurts.
We don’t move right away.
I don’t let go.
I don’t want to.
“You’re smiling,” he says after a moment.
“I know,” I answer quietly.
He turns slightly, enough to look at me properly now.
And there it is again.
That look.
The one that makes everything else feel irrelevant.
I lean forward without thinking.
He meets me halfway.
And when we kiss...
it feels easy.
Natural.
Like this is how things were always meant to be.
No fear.
No hesitation.
No consequences waiting on the other side.
Just us.
“I could stay like this forever,” I murmur against him.
He huffs softly. “Careful, Your Majesty. That almost sounds like a confession.”
I smile.
“I think it is.”
And for a moment...
everything is perfect.
Then...
it fractures.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
Violently.
The warmth disappears first.
Then the sound.
Then him.
I gasp awake.
My chest tight.
Breathing wrong.
Hands clutching at nothing.
The room is dark.
Silent.
Cold.
No engine.
No laughter.
No Rowan.
Just the emptiness.
I sit up too quickly, my heart pounding like it’s trying to outrun something it can’t escape.
My hands tremble as I look around the room, like some part of me still expects to find him there.
Leaning against the wall.
Watching me.
Alive.
But he isn’t.
Of course he isn’t.
The realization crashes into me again, just as brutal as the first time.
Rowan is gone.
My wrist burns faintly.
I don’t need to look to know.
The bond still there.
Still aching.
Still reaching for something it will never find again.
I press my hand against my chest, trying to steady my breathing.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing does.
“I could stay like this forever.”
The words echo in my mind.
Mocking now.
Cruel.
Because forever was never ours to have.
And I am left here...
Awake...
in a world where the only place I still get to hold him…
is in dreams that never last.
Grief doesn’t arrive the way people describe it.
It doesn’t knock.
It doesn’t announce itself.
It just… changes the air you breathe until you realise you’ve been drowning in it for days.
Rowan’s absence is still everywhere.
Not in the obvious ways.
Not in empty chairs or unfinished conversations.
But in the way my body still turns slightly when I enter a room, expecting him to be there before I consciously realise he won’t be.
It has been days.
Enough for the palace to pretend nothing irreversible has happened.
Enough for advisors to start speaking carefully around me again.
Enough for ceremonies to resume.
Enough for life to continue in the exact way it always does when someone important disappears and the world refuses to pause for it.
But I haven’t continued.
Not properly.
Today is his birthday.
Or would have been.
And I can’t explain why that fact alone feels heavier than anything else I’ve carried since the ceremony in the rain.
The palace chapel is quiet.
Not the ceremonial hall.
Something smaller.
Private.
Reserved.
They call it “closure rituals.”
I call it what it is.
A way to make absence look organised.
Kai stands on my right.
Zayn on my left.
Luna behind them, hands tightly clasped like she’s holding herself together through sheer force.
None of them speak.
They don’t need to.
There is no body.
There never was.
Just the absence of one.
And the things left behind that no one knows how to define.
I step forward first.
Not because I’m ready.
Because I never will be.
The marker is simple.
Too simple.
Stone.
Name.
Date.
Nothing that explains who he was beyond what the kingdom is allowed to acknowledge.
Rowan.
That’s all it says.
As if everything else about him can be reduced to that.
My throat tightens immediately.
I should be used to this feeling by now.
Loss.
But this one doesn’t behave like the others.
It doesn’t fade into memory.
It stays active.
I place my hand against the stone.
Cold.
Unmoving.
Unresponsive.
Nothing like him.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
The words feel insufficient the moment they leave me.
Too small for what they’re meant to hold.
Behind me, I hear Luna inhale sharply.
I don’t turn.
If I look at her right now, I might break differently.
Kai doesn’t speak either.
But I feel his presence steadying the space like he always does.
Zayn too...quiet, contained, but visibly holding something together that wants to fall apart.
My wrist burns faintly.
A ghost of something that used to be constant.
The bond doesn’t flare like it used to.
It doesn’t glow.
It just… aches.
Like an old injury that never properly healed.
I close my eyes briefly.
And I remember him.
Not the end.
Not the ceremony.
Not the fall.
But the first time I realised he was real in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore.
The rain.
The kiss.
The way he looked at me like I wasn’t just a title.
My chest tightens sharply.
“I should have said it sooner,” I whisper.
My voice cracks slightly.
Not for show.
Not for anyone here.
Just truth slipping out because I can’t hold it in anymore.
Kai shifts slightly beside me.
But he doesn’t interrupt.
He knows better.
“I should have stopped pretending I didn’t feel it,” I continue.
My hand stays on the stone.
Like he might respond if I stay long enough.
Like he might answer if I wait correctly.
Nobody answers.
Of course he doesn’t.
My breath shakes once.
Then steadies.
Not because I’m okay.
Because I have to continue.
“I thought I had time,” I say quietly.
“That I could figure it out while still keeping everything… controlled.”
A bitter exhale.
“That I could balance it.”
My fingers tighten slightly against the stone.
“It was never balanced,” I admit.
Silence.
Heavy.
Complete.
Zayn finally speaks softly.
“You didn’t know it would end like this.”
I shake my head slightly.
Not disagreement.
Regret.
“Maybe not,” I say.
“But I knew I was avoiding it...I ignored the fact that I... I... I loved him, no I love him”
That part hurts the most.
Not ignorance.
Delay.
Choice.
I step back slowly.
My hand leaving the stone feels worse than touching it.
Luna moves forward next.
Careful.
Small.
She doesn’t speak much.
Just places something at the base of the marker.
Something personal.
Something quiet.
Then she turns away quickly.
Like she can’t stay longer than necessary in a moment like this.
Kai steps forward after her.
He doesn’t place anything.
He just stands there for a moment.
Then nods once.
To nothing.
Or everything.
Zayn is last.
He looks at me briefly before stepping forward.
There’s something unreadable in his expression.
Not judgment.
Not pity.
Just understanding that this is one of those moments that changes how a person carries themselves forever.
When it’s done, there’s nothing left to do.
No final words that fix anything.
No ritual that restores what was lost.
Only the continuation of life around an absence that refuses to become background.
We leave together.
But I feel like I’m not fully walking anymore.
Like part of me stayed behind at that stone.
Because indeed part of me stayed behind at that stone.
Outside, the air is too bright.
Too normal.
Too indifferent.
Kai walks beside me.
Quiet.
Then eventually says, “You can’t undo it.”
“I know,” I say.
And I do.
That’s the worst part.
“I don’t want to,” I add after a moment.
My voice is low.
Honest.
“I just want more time.”
Kai doesn’t respond immediately.
Then:
“So did everyone who ever lost someone.”
That should comfort me.
It doesn’t.
Because this isn’t just loss.
It’s unfinished.
I stop walking for a moment.
Look back toward the chapel.
The place where everything that mattered shifted into something I can’t fix anymore.
“I didn’t acknowledge it properly,” I say quietly.
“My bond. Him. Us. Any of it.”
My throat tightens.
“And now there’s nothing left to acknowledge except that I waited too long.”
Silence again.
Zayn finally speaks from the other side of me.
“You didn’t choose this outcome.”
I shake my head.
“No,” I say softly.
“But I chose hesitation.”
That hangs there between us.
Not argued.
Not softened.
Just accepted as truth.
We keep walking.
And I realise something as we move away from the marker.
Not comforting.
Not hopeful.
Just real.
Grief doesn’t end.
It just changes shape.
And mine has started to look like regret that has nowhere left to go.