Wings Of My Regret

The Hollow Shell

Chapter 6: The Hollow Shell

The bells of North wood University chimed for the 10:00 AM lecture, a sound that should have been familiar, yet it felt like a hammer against Lily’s skull.

It had been three months since Lily "returned" from her mysterious disappearance. The police had found her wandering a mountain trail two hours away, dehydrated and shivering, with no memory of where she had been for the three days she was missing. They called it "dissociative fugue brought on by academic stress." Her parents—the people she now looked at with a strange, cold suspicion—had welcomed her back with tearful eyes and too many questions.

Lily sat in the back of her Art History class, staring at a blank page in her notebook.

The Phantom Hunger

She was back in her "normal" life. She had her coffee, her books, and her quiet apartment. But she was a ghost.

Every morning, she woke up with her cheeks wet with tears, her heart hammering against her ribs as if it were trying to escape her chest. There was a void in her life, a jagged, raw hole that nothing could fill. She found herself walking through the campus library for hours, searching the aisles for a scent she couldn't name.

"Are you okay, Lily?" her friend Sarah whispered, leaning over. "You’re doing it again."

"Doing what?" Lily asked, her voice sounding raspy.

"You're sniffing the air. And you look... like you're starving."

Lily looked down at her hands. They were trembling. She was starving, but not for food. There was a craving deep in her marrow, a physical ache for a heat she couldn't remember and a scent—something like cedar and a coming storm—that haunted her dreams.

The Fading King

While Lily lived her hollow life in the human world, the Obsidian Flight was falling into winter.

In the high tower of the black marble palace, Kaelen sat by a fireplace that had no fire. He looked like a shadow of the King he had been. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and the obsidian scales that used to ripple with power were now dull and falling off in brittle shards.

"Sire, you must eat," Lyra whispered, standing at the door. She looked at him with a mix of pity and fury. "The bond is snapping. If you don't go to the human realm and reclaim her, the next time the suns set, you won't wake up. Your heart is stopping, Kaelen."

Kaelen turned his head slowly. His golden eyes were dim, the fire in them nearly extinguished.

"I forced her," he rasped, his voice a ghost of the roar that had once shaken mountains. "I used the Rut to chain her. I saw the terror in her eyes before she ran... I saw the hatred. If my life is the price for her to live without fear, then I will pay it."

"She is not living!" Lyra shouted, stepping into the room. "She is a shell! You took her memories to protect her, but you left her soul in pieces! Look at the scrying glass!"

Kaelen looked into the silver basin of water. He saw Lily sitting in a classroom, her eyes vacant, her hand clutching a silver hairbrush she had kept from her "disappearance." She looked miserable. She looked broken.

"She regrets it," Lyra whispered. "She doesn't know what she’s missing, but she feels the absence of you every second. Let her choose, Kaelen. One last time. But do not die here in the dark like a coward."

The Return of the Scent

Lily walked out of the campus library into a sudden, unseasonable thunderstorm. The rain was freezing, turning the afternoon sky into a bruised charcoal.

She stood under the awning, watching the students run for cover. Suddenly, the wind shifted.

The smell hit her like a physical blow.

Cedarwood. Lightning. Burning embers.

Lily’s breath hitched. Her heart, which had felt like a lead weight for months, gave a violent, painful thud. Her vision blurred, gold sparks dancing at the edges of her sight.

"No," she whispered, her knees shaking. "Not again."

Across the flooded street, standing under a flickering street lamp, was a man. He was wearing a dark, tattered coat, his hair soaked by the rain. He looked weak—his shoulders were hunched, and he was leaning against the pole for support.

Even from twenty yards away, Lily felt the heat. It was faint now, like a dying candle, but it was his.

She didn't think. She didn't act "dumb." She didn't run away.

Lily stepped out into the pouring rain, her shoes splashing through the puddles. Every step she took toward him, a memory snapped back into place like a bone being reset.

The library. The gold eyes. The silk bed. The way he had looked at her like she was the only star in his sky.

"Kaelen?" she cried out, her voice cracking.

The man lifted his head. His eyes were barely gold, mostly a dull brown now, filled with a staggering amount of pain and guilt. He looked at her, and a single tear tracked through the rain on his face.

"I'm sorry, Lily," he whispered, his voice so weak it was almost lost to the wind. "I came... to say goodbye. I'm letting you go. Truly."

He turned to walk away, his footsteps heavy and uneven. He was giving her what she wanted. He was giving her freedom.

But as Lily watched him walk away—watched the man who had loved her through three lives literally dying because she had left him—a roar of pure, draconic grief exploded in her chest.

"Kaelen, stop!" she screamed.