KAEL*
There are wounds time doesn't touch.
It's a lie we tell mortals... that centuries soften pain, that the sharpest edges dull with the passing of years.
I've lived long enough to know better.
Even a hundred years later, I can still taste the ash on the wind. I can still hear her scream.
Tanya.
My mate.
---
She died on a battlefield soaked in her blood.
The sky was bleeding. Magic scorched the earth. Demons and Light Chasers were supposed to be allies that day, united against the ferals and warlords threatening both realms. It was a fragile pact, the kind doomed from the start. But Tanya believed in it. In peace. In truth.
She always believed in the impossible.
That's why they feared her.
Not just because she was powerful, she was unlike anything the Court had seen in centuries. Not just an incubus, but something more. The old ones whispered about her being touched by fate, bearer of the Void reborn, a being of balance.
She could destroy monsters with a touch and speak truths no one wanted to hear.
And that terrified them.
Especially High Lord Veyros, my uncle.
He was ancient, cruel, and desperate to maintain power in the Court. Tanya's growing influence threatened that. She was changing me, and that meant the future of our kind was changing too.
So he made a deal.
He secretly hired a Light Chaser.
The assassin's name was Calder Mirk, young, loyal, and stupid. He believed the lie he was told: that Tanya had betrayed the alliance. That she was secretly feeding information to the ferals. That she had to die to save the war effort.
He didn't question the source.
He didn't pause when he saw her standing there, wounded, surrounded by flame, but unarmed. She'd dropped her blade to save a child caught in the crossfire.
I watched it happen.
I was too far. Too slow.
I screamed her name.
She turned, eyes full of that impossible calm.
And Calder Mirk drove a silver spike through her back.
She collapsed into my arms seconds later. Blood on her lips. Her final breath whispered my name... not in fear, not in anger.
Just love.
She died .
And my heart died with her.
---
The days that followed were a haze of rage and smoke. I burned through the assassin's trail first, Calder didn't last a day. I tore through High Lord Veyros's inner circle next. Politics, diplomacy, restraint, all meaningless.
The Court tried to stop me.
They failed.
I stood before the High Circle, soaked in blood, her ashes still warm in my hands, and declared them cowards. Every one of them.
Then I vanished.
I gave up the throne. Gave up the court. Gave up the twisted legacy of lies they called "order." I walked into the shadows and let the empire rot.
For a century, I hunted the monsters no one dared name.
For a century, I didn't speak her name aloud.
---
Until her.
The first time I saw Talia, I thought the grief had finally broken me.
She was standing over a kill... young, barely fourteen, breathing hard, crossbow still raised. A child built of rage and rules.
But something in her movement was familiar.
In the way her eyes scanned the rooftops.
In the way her fingers brushed the hilt of her weapon like it was alive.
And then she looked up.
At me.
She couldn't see my face, not then... but I saw hers.
And in that moment, something old inside me stirred.
Not lust. Not hunger.
Recognition.
---
I followed her for years after that.
From rooftops. Through battlefields. Through shadows.
I told myself it was curiosity. Caution. Coincidence.
But it wasn't.
It was her.
Every year, she grew stronger. Sharper. Deadlier.
And every year, I watched the humans around her twist her into something they could use. Her mother, the once-gentle Ruth, turned her grief into fury and poured it into her children like poison. Talia was the perfect vessel. She obeyed. She endured. She excelled.
But her eyes were tired.
And her soul, her soul... wasn't like theirs.
Not entirely.
There was power in her. Hidden. Dormant. Unstable.
The same kind Tanya once carried.
The same kind Veyros feared.
The Court would kill her if they knew.
And maybe the humans would too.
So I kept her secret.
Even from her.
---
She's asleep now, lying in a bed too soft for someone who only knows cold stone and command. One arm tucked under her head. The other gripping the hilt of a blade beneath the pillow.
She doesn't trust me.
Good.
She shouldn't.
But gods… I want her to.
I move to the window. The stars are out, hidden behind the haze of city lights. She would've loved the old world skies. Tanya used to trace constellations across my chest.
I close my eyes and whisper a truth the stars won't repeat:
"You don't know who you are, Talia.
But when you find out…
the world won't survive you.
And I don't know yet…
Whether that's a blessing.
Or a curse.