Aelia didn't move when Kael stepped into the clearing.
She sat curled at the base of the white tree, blood dried on her arm, lips chapped, and the cloak half-fallen from her shoulders. But her spine was straight. Her chin lifted. Her eyes burned.
And when she spoke, it was not with the voice of a girl.
It was the voice of a woman who had seen too much.
> "You lied to me."
Kael didn't flinch.
Didn't deny it.
Didn't speak.
Just stood at the edge of the mist, watching her like a man witnessing a star fall where no star should.
---
"You told me Lysara destroyed the realm," Aelia said, rising slowly to her feet. "You made her a villain. A warning. Something buried and burned."
She stepped forward.
"One problem, Kael." Her voice cracked, but she didn't stop. "I was her."
Kael's jaw clenched.
"And you let me remember it like that?" she asked. "Alone? In a mirror that nearly swallowed me whole?"
"You weren't supposed to go there," he said finally, voice low.
"No," she snapped. "I wasn't supposed to know. You were going to keep me in that palace, smile like a king, kiss me when you felt guilty, and never tell me why she died."
His silence screamed louder than any answer.
---
Aelia crossed the space between them.
She was shaking now, but not from fear.
From the storm building inside her.
> "You didn't kill her," she said. "But you didn't stop her either."
He looked away.
She grabbed his wrist, forcing him to face her. "You watched her fall, Kael. You chose to be king."
"I had no choice."
"You always had a choice," she spat. "You just didn't want to lose the crown. So you let her bleed for it."
His eyes met hers — and for the first time, they weren't cold.
They were ash.
---
"I am not her," she whispered. "But I feel her pain in my bones."
Kael stepped back, like her words physically struck him.
"And you—" she stopped, the hurt catching in her throat, "you kissed me like I was the only one. But I was just a replacement."
"No." His voice was quiet, but sharp.
"No?" she repeated, almost laughing. "Then what am I?"
Kael closed the space between them in a breath.
"You are you."
"Then why do I feel like I've been wearing someone else's skin since the moment I arrived?" she snapped. "Why did you let me fall for you if you couldn't even look at me without seeing her?"
He didn't respond.
He couldn't.
Because it was true.
---
"I regret it," she said. "The kiss. The trust. Coming here."
His eyes flickered. "You don't mean that."
She stepped back. "I do."
Silence stretched between them.
The wind passed through the trees, soft and cold. The world felt thinner here. More breakable.
Aelia turned away.
But before she could move, his voice followed her.
> "She told me to let her go."
She froze.
"I begged her not to do it. But Lysara was always stronger than me," he said, barely above a whisper. "She chose death rather than become what I had."
Aelia didn't turn.
"And every time I looked at you, I feared she'd made it back. That the realm would demand her again."
Finally, she turned.
"Then you should've sent me away."
"I couldn't," he said, eyes meeting hers again. "Because you're not her. And that terrifies me more than if you were."
---
Aelia's breath hitched.
She stared at him, words caught behind her teeth.
The space between them pulsed — not magic, not memory.
Emotion.
Wound-deep. Fracture-sharp.
She wanted to hit him.
She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to never see him again.
---
Kael stepped closer.
"I don't know how to love what I can lose," he admitted. "Not anymore."
And that — more than anything — broke her.
Because she knew that pain.
Because she carried it too.
---
She didn't say anything.
Just lowered her eyes.
And in the quiet that followed, the Hollow Realm seemed to breathe again.
---