I wasn't supposed to find them.
I hadn't meant to walk that far into the old wing of the palace—the wing no one used anymore, sealed off with stories of rot and ghosts and political disgrace.
But it was snowing heavily, cutting off most of the main halls, and I'd wanted a moment to myself. A breath. A heartbeat. Something that wasn't cloaked in court whispers.
The room I slipped into was small, almost forgotten. Dust painted the corners, and the air smelled of old parchment and lavender gone dry. It must've once been someone's study. Shelves lined the walls, most empty, but one still held a few weathered books and a locked box, rusted with age.
The lock crumbled easily under pressure.
It was filled with a bundle of folded papers bound with a black ribbon.
I wanted ignoring then
But the moment I touched the top letter, something pulled at me—a gut-deep tug, like a thread winding through my bones.
I unfolded the first page.
My Dearest Liora,
If you had lived…. I wonder if I would still be this man. Or if I would have learned how to bleed sooner.
They say time heals all wounds, but the truth issome wounds grow roots. Mine have grown into the foundation of this palace.
Sometimes I see you in the dark . Sometimes I think I still hear your voice before I fall asleep. I write to you not because I think you'll answer …. But because I am afraid to forget the sound of your name.
Liora.
That name struck me like a whispered prayer. I read the rest of the letter with a strange tightness in my throat.
They were all written in the same sharp, precise hand. And they were all to her.
Some pages were wrinkled by water stains—tears, maybe. Others looked unfinished, stopped mid-thought.
They call it a curse now. But it began with love, didn't it? That was our mistake. Loving too much, loving too openly .
I wasn't ready to let you go.
If only we had lied.
I sat down, hard, on the cold window bench. Tears drippping from my eyes. My hands trembled as I read on.
Kael had loved once. Deeply. Desperately.
And whoever Liora was, she hadn't survived it.
I thought the curse was mine alone.
But it wasn't.
It never was.
It had roots here too , just like the Oracle said. It had lived in this palace before me. In these letters. In these scars.
He knew.
Kael knew exactly what the curse did to a heart that chose love—and he'd lived with that knowledge long before I entered his world.
No wonder he kept his distance.
No wonder he looked at me like I was a storm cloud waiting to break.
He'd already been struck once.
And I… I was the thunder on the horizon.
I gathered the letters carefully and replaced them, though it felt like betrayal to leave them behind. But they weren't mine to keep.
They were ghosts.
And Kael was still haunted.