CHAPTER 007: SMOKE AND SOFTNESS

I wasn't sure why I followed him.

Kaelen had said nothing when he left the council chamber—just that he needed air. No orders. No guards. Just a man with too many shadows and nowhere to put them.

I found him in the abandoned courtyard. The one no one used. The one with the broken statue of a god no one worshipped anymore.

He didn't look surprised when I approached. Just… tired.

"You're following me now?" he said, echoing my words to Talon days earlier.

I sat beside him on the cracked bench. "Consider it even."

He didn't smile. But his shoulders eased.

Silence stretched between us, long and strangely comfortable. I watched his profile—the hard jaw, the quiet tension in his hands. Hands that had ended men. Protected me. Carried me through fire more than once.

"You don't sleep much," I said softly.

"I do when you're beside me."

That one hit deeper than I expected.

I looked away, heart tight. "That's a dangerous thing to admit."

"I know."

Another silence.

Then he said, quieter, "You hate it here, don't you?"

I blinked. "This place?"

"No. This life."

My breath caught.

He turned to me, and I saw it again—that flicker behind the calm. The part of him he never showed to anyone but me.

"I didn't want this either, Sereya," he said. "The marriage. The deal. Any of it."

"Then why go through with it?"

His eyes didn't leave mine.

"Because when I saw you walk down that aisle, I knew I'd do anything to keep you from being used by anyone else. Even if it meant letting you hate me for it."

I didn't know what to say.

Kaelen rarely spoke like this. And when he did—it felt like truth. Not strategy.

"I don't hate you," I said finally.

It wasn't a lie.

He nodded slowly. "That might be worse."

I laughed, softly. "You always know the wrong thing to say."

"I know the right ones. I just don't deserve to say them yet."

We sat like that for a long time—two people in a ruined garden, trying to make something real from a foundation of lies.

And for just that moment, I let myself wonder—

If this had been real from the beginning…

Would I have fallen for him?

Was I falling now?

He stared at the statue across from us—half-shattered, moss-covered, forgotten.

"You know who that is?" Kaelen asked.

I shook my head.

"Oris. The god of grief."

"How poetic."

"Not really. They used to say if you spoke his name too often, he'd come for you."

"Did you believe that?"

He looked down at his hands. "I was ten when my mother died. I said his name three times in one night. Cried myself hoarse. Thought if I called him hard enough, he'd take me too."

The air went still.

I didn't move.

He'd never talked about his mother. I wasn't sure he even remembered her name—he'd never said it.

"She was quiet," he continued. "Smiled a lot. But never when anyone was watching. My father hated that."

"You talk like she's a ghost."

"She is."

I turned toward him, unsure if I should speak. "Kaelen—"

He cut me off, but not with anger. Just a whisper.

"I never told anyone that. Not Cassair. Not Talon. Not even the priest."

"Why me?"

He met my eyes. "Because you're the only person who might understand what it means to lose someone who wasn't perfect—but was still yours."

Something cracked open in my chest.

And it scared me.

Because it wasn't pain.

It was recognition.

I reached for his hand—not to hold it, but to anchor us both.

He let me.

No one spoke. There was no need.

This wasn't a confession meant to earn sympathy. It was a memory that had been buried so long, it didn't even bleed anymore.

He just wanted someone to see it.

And I did.

I saw him.

Not the strategist. Not the heir. Not the man I was supposed to hate.

Just Kaelen.

And gods help me—

I didn't hate him at all.

The silence between us stretched, but not uncomfortably.

Kaelen sat back, fingers laced in front of him, eyes on the cracked tiles of the courtyard.

"My mother's death wasn't natural," he said.

I turned to him slowly. "I thought she was ill."

"That's what the papers said." His jaw tightened. "She tried to run."

My blood chilled.

"She wasn't built for this life," he went on. "She married my father thinking she'd be the exception. That she could change the rules from the inside."

"And he—"

"Made sure she never tried again."

The coldness in his voice wasn't cruel. It was controlled. Practised. The kind you used to survive.

I sat up straighter, my heart beating hard in my chest.

"She died in a private clinic. Weeks after she tried to leave. Broken bones. Collapsed lung. Internal bleeding."

"And no one was punished?"

Kaelen laughed—soft, bitter.

"He was the head of Dravik. Who was going to punish him?"

I swallowed. "What about you?"

"I was ten." He looked at me. "What would you have done?"

"I don't know."

"I do. I waited."

"For what?"

"For him to die."

He stood suddenly, pacing a slow circle like the memory still stalked him.

"When I was fifteen, I told Cassair I wanted to kill him. He said no. Said I wasn't ready. That I needed to build my power and make the family depend on me. So when my father eventually fell… no one would ask questions."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

My breath caught.

He turned back to me. "Everyone thinks I earned this title by loyalty. By birthright. But I didn't."

I stood too. "You took it."

He nodded once.

"And I never looked back."

We stared at each other in the moonlight.

A king and a queen who weren't supposed to survive.

And yet—here we were.

"You still think I'm a monster?" he asked quietly.

"I think you were made by monsters," I said. "And you learned to be sharper."

That made something flicker in his eyes.

Not pride.

Not pain.

Something like… hope.

"I'm not him, Sereya."

"I know," I said.

But the truth was—

I wasn't sure yet.

We re-entered the estate in silence.

The air inside felt thicker. The kind of heavy that came after truths you couldn't un-say.

Kaelen walked ahead of me, hands in his pockets, jaw tight. Like he was holding something back. Or deciding whether to say it at all.

Then he stopped at a door I'd never seen before. Heavy wood. No markings.

He pulled a key from a chain around his neck.

"I've never brought anyone in here," he said without looking at me.

"What is it?"

"My legacy."

He opened the door.

I stepped inside slowly.

The room was dim, lined with locked cabinets, leather folders, and old artefacts—photos, heirlooms, maps, and names carved into stone tablets. History. The bloody kind.

"This is where the truth lives," he said. "What my father built. What I tore down. What I'm still trying to rebuild."

He reached for one cabinet and pulled out a small lockbox.

Inside was a gun.

Black steel. Elegant. Custom-engraved.

He handed it to me.

"Yours," he said.

I blinked. "Why?"

"Because one day, someone in this house will turn on you. And I might not be there to stop it."

My fingers curled around the weight of it.

"And

if I'm the one who turns on you…" he added, voice lower now, "You'll need this more than anyone."

I looked up at him, throat tight.

"You trust me with this?"

"I trust you with everything," he said.

And gods help me…

That scared me more than any enemy ever could.