Chapter 5
824 Words
Valemont City – The Royce Hotel, 11:17 A.M.
Selene stood at the window of her suite, staring down at the streets of Valemont like they might offer answers. But the city only stared back cold, glittering, indifferent.
Last night’s confession had shifted everything.
Cassien knew now.
Not just her real name. Not just her face in that photograph.
But the weight of what he’d forgotten.
And still… she didn’t know how to feel.
She had waited years for that moment. Rehearsed it. Imagined it a thousand different ways. But none of them had ended with him saying, “I want to remember everything.”
That wasn’t part of her plan.
Her plan didn’t account for the look in his eyes, shocked, raw, almost… aching.
She’d wanted clarity. Revenge, maybe.
But she’d gotten something else.
Hope.
And that terrified her.
She turned away from the window and glanced at the clock. Lysa would arrive any minute.
Selene had sent the car an hour ago. She hadn’t seen her sister in over two weeks. Her travel and work schedule had been brutal but now, more than ever, she needed the truth grounded in something pure.
In someone who hadn’t forgotten her.
A soft knock came. Selene opened the door to find Lysa standing there, petite and radiant in a navy sweater and jeans, her cane tucked under one arm.
“Don’t you look like a mystery,” Lysa teased, stepping in. “New wardrobe, luxury suite, secret job you refuse to explain...”
“Hi to you too,” Selene smiled, pulling her into a hug.
Lysa grinned, but when she pulled back, her smile softened. “You’re wearing that bracelet again.”
Selene looked down at the thin silver band on her wrist, the one Cassien had given her a week before the fire.
“I saw him,” she said quietly.
Lysa’s face changed. “You mean…”
“Yes. Cassien.”
Silence fell between them.
“He didn’t remember you, did he?” Lysa asked gently.
Selene shook her head. “Not until last night.”
“And now?”
“I told him everything. Who I was. Who we were.” Her voice shook a little. “He didn’t run. He didn’t deny it. He looked wrecked.”
Lysa lowered herself onto the couch. “You really think he lost those memories?”
“I do now. I saw the reports. There was an accident. Head trauma. Amnesia. The doctors never expected full recall.”
Lysa nodded slowly. “So… what happens now? Is this the part where you forgive him and fall back in love?”
“I don’t know,” Selene admitted. “Part of me still wants to be angry. But another part… the stupid part… wants to believe we still have a chance.”
Lysa’s voice was soft. “That’s not stupid.”
They sat for a long moment, neither of them speaking. The past eight years hung in the room like smoke. All the things they’d lost. All the things they’d become without him.
Selene finally broke the silence. “I need you to do something.”
“Anything.”
“I want you to meet him.”
Lysa blinked. “You want me to know why?”
“Because if he’s going to remember who I was, he should see who you are. You were the reason he made that vow. He didn’t just promise to protect me, Lysa. He promised to protect us.”
That afternoon, Selene called Cassien.
He answered after one ring.
“Come to the rooftop garden,” he said. “Now. There’s something you should see.”
She hesitated. “Can I bring someone?”
There was a pause.
“Who?”
“My sister.”
Vortiger Tower – Rooftop Garden, 4:10 P.M.
The garden was silent when Selene and Lysa arrived, long rows of curated plants, water features, and old stone benches beneath a silver sky. A strange kind of peace hovered over it, so unlike the hard steel of the building below.
Cassien stood at the far edge, hands in his pockets, staring into the distance. When he turned, his eyes flicked to Selene first… then to Lysa.
He stilled.
Selene guided her sister forward. “Lysa,” she said softly, “this is Cassien.”
Cassien took a step closer. “I remember you,” he said quietly. “Not everything. But enough.”
Lysa tilted her head. “Then you know you owe us both an explanation.”
He didn’t flinch. “I do. And I will give it to you.”
There was no apology yet. No grand gesture. Just silence, honesty, and something unspoken in his eyes.
Selene watched him and realized something else:
He wasn’t the boy who had made that promise.
He was a man now bruised, closed off, but not unreachable.
And maybe, just maybe, part of her still believed in him.
- Writer
