Chapter Twenty-Five
KAEL
She comes apart in front of me.
All I can do is watch.
Every instinct in me screams to go to her—to hold her, to make her remember us—but the look in her eyes stops me cold.
It’s not fear.
It’s hate.
The kind born of betrayal so deep it twists through bone.
She doesn’t want me near her.
So I do nothing.
The wind tears through the pass, carrying her sobs with it—raw, fractured sounds that shouldn’t belong to her.
This isn’t just pain.
This is something else.
This is the sound of survival unraveling.
Her skin glows faintly under the Starlight, streaked with dirt, blood, and kohl. The dress lies in shreds beside her. The cloak she chose—not mine—hangs loose around her shoulders, swallowing her whole.
I want to reach for her. Gods, I want to.
To pull her against my chest.
But her scream still echoes in my bones.
Don’t touch me.
The words still ring like a command I’ll obey for the rest of my life.
So I stay where I am.
A soldier standing sentry before a fallen queen.
Her body shakes so violently that the earth trembles with her.
And I swear I can feel every fracture of her pain inside my own ribs.
I would bleed for her. Again. A thousand times.
But this?
This is the wound I can’t take from her.
Gods, I want to. I’d take every shred of this and carry it for a lifetime if it meant seeing her light again.
But that’s not how it works.
So I sit in the dirt, knees drawn up, breath curling around me like a prayer I don’t deserve.
Hating myself. Because this—this is on me.
She presses her palms into the ground—breathing through the grit, grounding herself the only way she knows how.
“I’m here,” she whispers.
Each word smaller, thinner. Like she’s trying to convince herself.
The others hover behind me, afraid to speak. Afraid to see.
I motion them away.
This moment belongs to her.
The night stretches long. Her sobs soften into tremors, then into breath.
And still, I don’t move.
I just watch the wind trace through her hair, carrying away the scent of ash and iron.
When she finally lifts her head, her eyes find mine.
And all I see is hate.
It bashes through my heart like a fucking war hammer, but I don’t break.
I just keep my eyes on her, memorizing the fact that she’s breathing. That she’s still here.
If she needs to hate me, she can.
If she never forgives me, I’ll survive it.
But I won’t leave.
I’ll be here until she lets me explain. Until she lets me hold her.
And until then, I’ll guard what’s left of her from the world, and from me.