The wind tugged at Kaelen's cloak as he turned from the balcony.
Below, thousands cheered his name-his stolen name. Their chants echoed in the courtyard, blind and joyous.
Vaelric shut the door behind him.
Silence fell like a shroud.
But inside, the silence was broken.
A flicker of frost spread up his spine-sharp, cold, and unwelcome. His hand clenched. The body resisted again. Kaelen's body.
"You're mine now," Vaelric whispered to himself, his voice low and dry. "You just don't know it yet."
She was waiting in the lower courtyard.
Elira.
Wrapped in the light of the setting sun, her face was soft, expectant-hopeful in a way that scraped at something deep in him.
"You vanished," she said, walking up to him.
He nodded. "I needed quiet."
She tilted her head. "You never liked quiet. You used to say silence made you feel like the war was creeping back in."
He hesitated. "Maybe I've changed."
"You have," she said with a small smile. "But maybe not all in bad ways."
They walked together through the half-ruined garden. Her arm brushed his. Her presence was warm, familiar-and yet too close.
She kept talking.
"I saw the way you held that boy's hand earlier. The orphan from the breadline."
He nodded.
"You've never done that before. Not in public."
"I thought I did what was needed."
"You used to do what was right. No matter who saw."
Her words were gentle. But they cut.
Vaelric smiled faintly. "You think I'm a stranger?"
She looked at him-truly looked.
"I think I'm not sure," she said.
They stopped at the base of the old tower steps. The stones beneath their feet bore burn marks from the siege.
Elira folded her arms. "Remember when we sat here after the first battle? You had a cut down your cheek, and I was trying to heal you with half-dead herbs."
He nodded slowly.
"You kept flinching," she said. "Not from pain-but because I wouldn't stop talking about strategy."
"You were always better at planning than patching wounds," he offered.
She chuckled. "But you still let me try."
Vaelric said nothing.
She took a slow breath. "Do you remember what you said after?"
His eyes flicked to hers. "Remind me."
"You said, 'Even if I fall, I'll fall knowing you're still here.'"
A long silence.
Then she added, quieter, "That's when I knew I loved you."
The wind shifted. Cold air rushed between them.
"You've barely touched me since the execution," she said suddenly. "No kiss. No brush of the hand. Not even my name."
"Elira," he said, softly.
She shook her head. "Not like that. When he said my name, it always felt like he meant it."
Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
Magic surged.
A faint shimmer of golden light appeared between them-a healing barrier. Not aggressive. Protective.
"I don't want to fight you," she said, trembling. "But I will."
He didn't flinch.
"You were always going to find out."
She lifted both hands. Walls of light bloomed in the air-thin, flickering shields formed from her healer's gift. Not weapons. Only barriers.
"Kaelen would never hurt me," she whispered.
"I'm not Kaelen," Vaelric said.
And fire erupted from his palm.
The blast slammed into her barrier. It cracked. Another wave followed-sharper, hotter-shattering it into sparks.
Elira stumbled back, raising another, weaker shield.
Tears streaked her face.
"Why?" she cried. "Why take his body?"
He advanced slowly, heat rolling from his fingertips.
"You loved him," he said. "And through him, the people loved you. But you... would have seen too much. Asked too many questions."
"I would've helped you!" she shouted. "Even if you weren't him-I would've tried-"
"But I don't want help," he said coldly. "I want control."
She flung up her last barrier.
As it cracked under his flame, her memories rose like fire behind her eyes:
They were children-both barely twelve-when Vaelric's soldiers had dragged her mother away. Her crime? Healing rebel children.
Kaelen had held Elira as she screamed, hiding her beneath the boards of a cellar while booted feet thundered above. That night, he swore he'd learn to fight. Not for revenge-but to protect her.
They'd grown together in the cracks of tyranny. By firelight and stolen bread, under whispering trees and blood-red moons. He was wild and stubborn, always sneaking into the guard towers, always returning bruised but grinning. She was quieter-gentler-mending the wounded, listening more than she spoke.
By sixteen, they were inseparable.
By eighteen, they were in love.
She remembered
Kaelen laughing in a rainstorm.
Kaelen tying bandages with bloody fingers.
Kaelen whispering secrets under starlight.
Kaelen bleeding beside her, whispering, "I won't die unless you let me."
And now-this man.
With Kaelen's face.
His eyes were colder than the king they'd overthrown.
The final wall broke.
Vaelric crossed the distance in a blink.
His dagger plunged into her chest-just beneath the ribs, angled for the heart.
She gasped, blood at her lips.
Her eyes widened-not with pain.
With recognition.
She touched his face.
"You look like him..." she whispered. "But he's not here anymore, is he?"
Vaelric said nothing.
"I'm glad I saw him first," she murmured, and her fingers went limp.
He laid her down gently. Her blood soaked the petals beneath them.
For a moment, he stood still.
Then the pain hit him.
Not grief-at first. Something deeper.
A pulse of ice in his lungs. Fire in his spine. Two elements warring beneath his skin. The body fought him again-Kaelen's final curse.
He staggered, gripping a stone pillar for balance.
His vision blurred. His breath came ragged.
But he made no sound.
"Stay cold," he told himself. "Stay above it."
His hand trembled.
Not from pain.
From the weight of what he had done.
"She would have warned them," he muttered. "She would've looked too closely. She would've seen the cracks."
He closed her eyes with shaking fingers.
"I gave her peace," he said, barely a whisper. "Before she could suffer betrayal."
But even as he turned away, the pain stayed with him.
The fire he brought.
And the frost he couldn't control.