Kaelen:
I had broken a thousand promises in my life.
But none had shattered me more than the ones I broke to her.
Ariane lay across the bed like something half-ruined, half-divine—fragile only in her stillness. Even bruised and battered, she radiated. Her skin was a battlefield, painted in violets and greys, a tapestry of war I had failed to stop.
I sat beside her, hunched and hollow, clutching her hand like it was the only thing anchoring me to this world. Maybe it was.
“I don’t deserve to be here,” I rasped, voice breaking on the truth. “But gods, I need to be.”
My knees hit the floor, a quiet kind of surrender. There was no audience. No expectation. Only the wreckage I’d caused—and the girl who’d borne its weight.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, soundless. Salt-stung grief staining
