Kael's POV:
It began with a single sentence. One that didn't seem like the kind of thing that should shake a man like me.
"The girl's dead. The prisoner is missing."
I didn't react right away.
I couldn't.
Because my mind, so trained in strategy, warfare, and diplomacy, went silent.
Like the world had tilted off its axis and I was the only one who felt it.
Dead.
Missing.
You.
I was already moving before the soldier finished his sentence.
I didn't take the stairs.
I jumped the railings, three levels down, landed in a crouch that cracked the marble beneath me. My boots echoed like thunder through the corridors.
I shoved past confused guards. Barked orders that shook the foundation.
No one stopped me.
They wouldn't dare.
"Find the prisoner."
"Seal the gates."
"No one enters or leaves."
"I want every room searched. Now."
But I didn't wait for the results.
I scoured the fortress myself.
I tore through corridors, storerooms and courtyards.
Checked every hallway, every cell, every shadow.
And every second that passed without you-
I unraveled.
Not visibly.
Not audibly.
But something beneath my skin splintered.
I could feel it in my breath. In my pulse.
In the way my hand trembled around the hilt of my blade when I kicked open a chamber door only to find it empty.
You were gone.
And the longer I couldn't find you-
The more I realized just how terrifying that felt.
But then,
I found you by accident.
No—fate. Fate led me to that storage room.
A tucked-away space rarely used.
And there you were.
Curled on the floor.
Blood dried on your skin.
Hands slack in your lap.
Staring at nothing.
And I-
I stopped breathing.
Because I had imagined you dead a hundred times in that search.
And now that you are alive?
I didn't know whether to fall to my knees or hold you like I'd never let go.
You didn't look at me when I stepped inside. Didn't flinch. Didn't move.
Just sat there. Haunted and hollow and silent.
And it broke something inside me.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not a shattering glass kind of break.
No, this was quieter. Like old stone cracking under the weight of time.
Like something that had been standing strong for years finally admitting it couldn't anymore.
"...Found you."
*****
Your voice, when it came, was too soft.
Your denial is too fragile.
But your eyes, when they met mine, they killed me.
Because I saw it. All of it.
The shock. The guilt. The helplessness.
And something deeper.
Like you didn't understand why I was here. Why I was the one who came.
"You've got blood on your face," I said, because it was all I could manage without my voice breaking.
You nodded, as if you didn't even notice. So I did what I could.
I asked to clean you.
And when you let me- gods, when you let me,
I swore I wouldn't let you break.
I wiped your skin with my own hands. Felt the dried blood crumble under my touch.
I didn't want anyone else near you. Not like that.
Only me.
Because somewhere between dragging you out of a cell and seeing your smile that first morning-
I stopped thinking of you as a prisoner.
And started thinking of you as mine.
You asked me why I came.
I didn't know how to answer that at first. But the truth spilled out, ugly and raw:
"Because the thought of you alone, covered in blood, broke something in me."
And when you nodded, when you let me hold you,
I knew I was lost.
I'd cradle you through hell if you asked me to.
I'd kill for you.
I'd burn kingdoms for you.
But for now…
I held you in my arms.
And breathed your name into your hair-
"Auren."
My truth.
My prayer.
My curse.