The door closed behind her with a muted thud, and for a long while, Kael didn't move.
Her presence still lingered — faint warmth in a room that had long forgotten what warmth felt like.
He sat there, unmoving, the silence pressing like stone upon his chest. The glow beneath his skin had dimmed, but it was not gone. The curse was never truly gone. It only slept, waiting for the next moment of weakness.
Her voice still echoed in his mind.
"You cannot fight something like this by pretending it is just yours."
Foolish woman.
And yet…
Those words dug deeper than he wanted to admit.
Kael pressed his palms to his face, inhaling through gritted teeth. His head throbbed — not from pain this time, but from the memory of her touch.
When her power had flared against his, it had quieted the curse. The burning that usually tore through his veins had… stilled. Like a storm forced into submission.
Even if just for a moment, he had felt peace.
Peace was dangerous.
If he kept her close, the curse might not hurt as much.
If he kept her close, he might breathe without feeling the claws of his ancestors tightening around his soul.
But he couldn't.
Not without becoming what his father once was.
His father had said the same thing once — "Just a little relief."
And then he had used people, sacrificed them, fed the curse with lives that were never his to take. Every drop of blood spilled for "control" had only strengthened the curse's hold until it devoured him whole at fifty.
Kael's jaw clenched as the memory clawed back — the sound of his father's screams, the smell of blood, the way the curse had crawled up his body like black fire. The way Miren had whispered prayers that never reached any god.
He had sworn that night that he would never become that man.
He would never let the curse make a monster out of him.
And yet here he was, fighting the same temptation — to hold on to the one thing that could ease the pain.
Her.
Zelene.
Kael rose from the altar's shadow, steadying his breath. The runes beneath his boots flickered as if sensing his hesitation.
He stared at the doorway she'd gone through, at the faint trace of light spilling in through the cracks. It shouldn't have been there — no light reached this deep. But she had brought it with her, somehow.
That terrified him more than the curse itself.
He knew what she was — what her presence did to him.
Aether's light. A power that judged sins and weighed souls.
And his soul?
His was not meant to be weighed.
The curse fed on guilt. On blood.
If she ever turned that light fully upon him… he wasn't sure what she would see.
Or what it would do to him.
A knock sounded faintly outside the chamber door. A hesitant voice followed. Darius.
"My lord? Shall I prepare the draught?"
Kael straightened, his tone returning to ice. "No. Not tonight."
Footsteps retreated. Silence reclaimed the room.
He looked once more toward the door where Zelene had disappeared, then turned away — forcing himself to face the runes instead of the ghost of her warmth.
"Stay away from me, Zelene Evandelle," he muttered under his breath.
"Before the curse finds you too."
But even as he said it, his hand drifted to his chest — to the place where her power had reached him.
The mark there pulsed faintly, softer now, almost… calm.
And Kael Dravenhart, the man who had faced a hundred battles without flinching, found himself whispering the one truth he could never admit aloud:
"If only it didn't hurt less when you're near."
He turned from the altar, his shadow stretching long across the stone — not realizing that the runes underfoot, once dull and lifeless, shimmered faintly with light as he walked away.
Light that did not belong to the curse.
Light that belonged to her.