I awoke to the scent of salt and the distant sound of waves.
Pain radiated through my body like cracks in glass, every breath a reminder that I was still alive. My limbs felt weighted, soaked, and aching. Sunlight filtered through rough wooden planks above me. I wasn't in the palace. I wasn't on the battlefield.
I was in a fisherman's hut by the sea.
A weathered old man and his quiet wife had pulled me from the surf. They said I'd fallen from the cliffs and the tide had delivered me to them, half-drowned and broken.
I stayed silent.
Days passed. My body slowly healed. But the scars—both old and new—remained carved deep into my soul.
In the capital, the banners of victory flew high, but the Emperor did not celebrate.
Damien Drake, once known for his steel will, had locked himself within the palace.
They said he barely ate. That he spoke to no one.
Only to a name that no longer answered.
"Elias..."
He held the red robe in his lap—the one I wore the day he tore my world apart. It was frayed now, stained from blood and sea and memory.
He whispered to it as if it were alive.
Months passed. I remained hidden.
A scarf covered my face when I ventured into the village. I had taken up painting—portraits for copper coins. It was simple. Quiet. Free.
But freedom, it seemed, did not silence ghosts.
At night, I dreamed of his voice.
His breath.
The way he looked at me when hatred gave way to desperation.
Was that love?
No. Love didn't hurt like this.
One spring morning, a familiar figure appeared outside my shop.
"You're the painter?"
I looked up, brush frozen in mid-stroke.
Gareth.
He looked older. His hair streaked with gray. His armor gone.
Beside him stood a woman with gentle eyes and a kind smile.
"My wife," he said, pride softening his voice.
I nodded slowly. "You look happy."
He stepped closer, voice lower. "Are you?"
I didn't answer. He didn't press.
Instead, he held out a letter.
Sealed in crimson.
"He wrote this. After he thought you were dead."
I stared at it but didn't take it.
"Why bring it to me now?"
"Because," Gareth said, "I think you deserve to know the truth."
That night, alone in my room, I opened it.
The handwriting was unmistakably his.
Elias,
I should have chosen differently. But I was raised to believe love was weakness, and I feared you were my greatest one.
When I ordered your death, I thought I could erase that fear.
I was wrong.
Every night, I see you standing on that cliff. And every night, I lose you again.
Come back to me. If you ever live, if you ever forgive me, come back.
I will wait.
Yours,
Damien
I didn't cry.
But I didn't sleep either.
Three days later, I left the village.
No one saw me go. Not even Gareth.
I traveled under moonlight, avoiding towns. My body still bore the memory of pain, but my soul had found a strange calm.
I wasn't going back to him.
I was going to see him.
To decide for myself what came next.
Not as a servant.
Not as a prisoner.
But as Elias Quinn—the man he had broken, and the only one who could decide whether Damien Drake was worth saving.