Chapter Thirty-Seven: Scars That Bloom
"Some scars do not fade. But under sunlight, even wounds can flower."
Spring came late to the capital that year.
Ash still clung to the rooftops. The rivers ran dark with the remnants of war, and the wind carried the echo of screams too recent to forget. But green pushed through cracked cobblestone. Ivy crept up burned walls. Flowers bloomed stubbornly from ruins.
In the courtyard of the shattered palace, children played for the first time in years.
And Riven watched them from a balcony, his fingers loosely curled around a chipped tea cup.
"They laugh like the war never happened," he murmured.
Kael leaned against the stone beside him. "They're children. It's their right."
Riven gave a slow nod. "It feels unreal."
"It is unreal. We should both be dead."
Riven glanced sideways, his voice softer now. "But we're not."
"No," Kael replied. "We're not."
And for a long time, they just stood there in the morning light, two broken men wrapped in silence and something like hope.
The council had been slow to form.
Many of the old nobles were dead or fled. The surviving scholars, merchants, and former rebels sat in a semi-circle each week, their voices raised over cracked maps and reports.
Kael, ever the reluctant figurehead, refused a throne but sat at every meeting.
He listened. Questioned. And when needed, commanded.
But he did not rule alone.
Riven often stood behind him, arms crossed, gaze sharp as any blade. He spoke rarely—but when he did, people listened. His words were knives, but they cut through noise and fear.
"Do not replace one tyrant with ten cowards," Riven said once. "Rebuild, yes—but not in the old shape. Burn the blueprints, too."
They reopened the healer's quarter first.
Kael helped carry wood. Riven stood beside the sick, teaching apprentices what he'd learned in the mountains—herbs that soothed, roots that bled poison, pressure points to ease a dying breath.
One night, an old woman grasped Riven's wrist and whispered, "Are you the one who killed the Emperor?"
Riven froze.
"Yes," he said finally.
The woman only smiled. "Good. Then stay alive long enough to help fix what he broke."
Their bed was no longer a battlefield.
Riven no longer woke screaming every night. Some nights, yes—still. But Kael was always there, strong arms wrapping around his waist, whispering in his ear until the shadows retreated.
And Kael…
He began to smile again. Slowly. Gently. Like the sun returning after a long eclipse.
They did not call it love out loud. They didn't have to.
It was in the way Riven brushed ash from Kael's shoulder before council meetings. In the way Kael found flowers from the outer gardens and tucked them into Riven's satchel.
In the way they slept only when they were together.
One evening, Kael took Riven to the outer walls where new banners hung—plain white, no sigils, no emblems.
"A fresh start," Kael said.
Riven looked over the city, smoke still trailing from distant chimneys.
"You think we can truly change it?"
Kael turned to him. "I think we already have."
A soft breeze picked up.
Below, children's laughter drifted through the air. Somewhere, a song was playing on a broken lute.
Riven closed his eyes.
"Then let it bloom," he whispered.
End of Chapter 37