Maris startled upright, the book sliding from her lap to the rug with a soft thud.
Before she could call out, the latch turned, and the door to her sitting room opened without waiting for her response.
Kael stepped through the door like a dark tide pouring into her chambers, his cloak settling around him with silent finality. The faint scent of iron and a darker sweetness clung to him. His shadows pooled at his feet. His eyes, glowing and unearthly, found hers where she stood frozen by the hearth.
“You’re awake,” he said, quiet but certain, as if he’d known she would be.
Maris clenched her fists around the silk of her nightdress, the crimson fabric shivering between her fingers.
“Why are you here?” she demanded, voice raw.
Kael stepped closer, studying her in a way that made her skin burn.
“I came because…” He hesitated, something she hadn’t seen him do. " I thought I'd offer you the best explanation for my actions that I have." Then he exhaled slowly. “I was drawn to you. I pulled from my kingdom to Eryndor by a force beyond myself to you. From the moment I first crossed the human borders, I could feel… something. Like a thread, guiding me through the dark until I found you.”
His brow furrowed, and for the barest instant, uncertainty flickered across his perfectly carved features.
“I do not fully understand it myself,” he admitted.
Maris’s chest felt like it might explode with rage. “So you stole me away,” she spat, “because of a FEELING? Because of some string of fate you couldn’t name?”
Kael’s jaw tightened, but he did not look away.
“Your life, before,” he said evenly, “was nothing but tending to the ashes of the dead. A dull existence of half-empty hearths and plague-haunted streets.”
Her eyes flashed.
“And you think that makes this better?” Her voice broke on the last word, fury sparking through every nerve. “You think tearing me from my home, my families graves, makes my small life worthless?”
His eyes softened, if only slightly.
“Not worthless,” he said. “Simply…without purpose. Here, at least, you might serve something greater, however small.”
Maris let out a strangled laugh, tears hot and unwanted behind her eyes.
“I am human, Kael. I am twenty-five. My years are numbered on a short string, and you — you and your court will still be here long after my bones are dust.”
Kael watched her, that same unreadable expression, like a statue carved by a god who’d forgotten to finish it.
“Then perhaps,” he murmured, stepping closer until his cold shadow covered her, “you will burn brightly in what years you have. That is more than many humans ever know.”
Maris trembled, so full of rage and sorrow she felt she might collapse.
Kael’s hand hovered near her face, but did not touch her, as if the slightest brush would snap them both apart.
“Rest,” he said, voice suddenly quiet. “Tomorrow, you begin again.”
And with that, he turned, cloak trailing like night itself, and vanished through the door, leaving her alone with a roaring ache in her chest that refused to die.
-Kael-
Kael left Maris’s chambers with his mind tangled in impossible knots.
He walked the halls of Calyrix Castle, ancient shadows welcoming him like old companions, the scent of burned candle wax and moonlit roses thick in the air. Rage still simmered in his blood, though he hid it well. No one had ever raised their voice to him so boldly, no one since his father, who was dust now within the obsidian crypts.
And yet Maris had dared.
Part of him wanted to snarl, to break her spirit beneath his boot until she understood her place. Another part, far darker, wanted to taste her rage on his lips, to devour that spark of defiance until she trembled for him alone.
