Aurelia stood at the end of the hallway, her breath catching in her throat before she even moved closer. His back was to her, shoulders slightly hunched as if the weight he carried had bent him over the years, and yet... there was still that stubborn line to his stance, the same unyielding defiance she remembered from long ago.
Her vision blurred without warning, and she didn’t even try to blink it away. Only she knew—only she would ever know—how she had lived after that day. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ novel✶fire.net
She stepped forward, each soundless pace feeling heavier than the last. Her lips parted, and the word came out softer than a whisper, yet it reached him like a touch.
"Cassian..."
He stilled.
Her voice trembled again, laced with years of unshed confessions. "How... how have you been all these years?"
When he turned, it was slow. The shadows slid off his face, revealing eyes that had already guessed someone followed him, but he never thought it would be her. For a heartbeat, something unreadable passed over his features. Then his mouth curved in something too shallow to be called a smile.
"Very much alive, Princess."
The title hit like a blade dipped in frost. He hadn’t meant it to be this harsh, but the words carried the quiet, buried weight of every grievance, every night those years had taken from him.
Aurelia’s breath hitched, her chest tightening until it hurt. "Cassian... I know... it’s because of me you had to face something like this." Her voice faltered, barely holding together the cracks in it. She wanted to say sorry.
She wanted to kneel, to drag the words out until he could see how they had bled her for years. But apologies felt so small compared to what she had taken from him.
Only she knew the truth. Back then, when she had stood before the court, her claim of liking him had not been some childish whim—it had been real. Reckless, maybe, but real.
She had thought... foolishly thought... that if she declared it publicly, it would force her parents’ hand and would make them yield to her will because a princess’s name was not to be tarnished.
But she had not known how cruel her mother could be. She had not expected the order to come so swiftly, so cold—his execution signed away as if his life were worth less than the ink on the parchment.
The court had turned the blade sharper still, weaving lies that painted him as a parasite clawing upward, manipulating a princess to raise his station. They had draped him in disgrace before the noose ever touched his neck. And she... she had stood there, helpless and burning, watching the walls close in.
But now—now she could not tell him that her heart back then had been pure, that she had loved him in her quiet, careful way. But she could not speak it aloud, not with Malakar’s shadow stretching over them even in this empty hallway.
Her mate would not forgive such a confession even if it was just to explain the past. He would make Cassian pay for it in ways she could not stop. She had already made that reckless mistake once—she would not drag him into danger again.
Her gaze flickered to the ground, then back to his face, memorizing the sharp lines the years had carved there. "I never wanted this for you," she whispered, though the rest remained locked in her throat.
And she knew from the way his eyes watched her, cool and unblinking, that he could hear the words she didn’t dare speak.
For a moment, silence pressed between them, thick and heavy, the kind that seemed to muffle even the wind. Aurelia stood still, her eyes fixed on him, as though if she looked away, he might dissolve into smoke again.
Cassian’s gaze lingered on her face, searching for something—anger, pity, the polished distance of a royal—but instead finding the same eyes from years ago, only heavier now, clouded by a guilt she wore like a second skin.
He exhaled slowly, the sound rough in the stillness. "You don’t have to ask for my forgiveness, Princess." His voice was low and steady, yet it carried the faintest crack of something deeper. "It wasn’t because of you. It was... my luck. My bad luck."
The words were not meant to wound, nor to comfort. They simply were, a truth he had long since made peace with—or at least pretended to. At one corner of his heart, he had never truly blamed her. Not entirely. The years had layered too many other memories over the old wound, yet the grievance had remained, lodged in his chest like a splinter he had refused to pull out.
Five years of swallowing it. Five years of letting it burn quietly.
And now, standing here, looking at her—he realized something he hadn’t before. It was time to let go. He couldn’t keep living in the shadow of that one day; clinging to it only carved the wound deeper. Dwelling on it would never turn back the clock, would never make him anything but a prisoner to what was already gone.
But still... he remembered.
He remembered the courtyard, the crowd’s jeers, and the guards’ whips tearing into his back until blood soaked through his shirt. He remembered the blur of faces—cold, curious, indifferent—and then hers, pushing forward against them all.
She had run to him. She had stood between him and the next strike, her voice shaking with fury he’d never heard from her before. She had tried to protect him, even when the entire world seemed eager to crush him.
That memory refused to be buried.
His jaw tightened. "A single ’sorry’ won’t change anything," he said finally, not to punish her but because it was true. "I won’t pretend it will make me... normal again." His gaze softened, almost imperceptibly. "But... knowing you still remember me, it’s enough to take the edge off," he said with a smile, like he was making peace with her.
Aurelia’s lips parted, a breath leaving her as if she had been holding it since the day they parted. Her fingers curled at her sides, wanting to reach for him, to hold onto that sliver of warmth in his voice.
She had thought the years would have hardened him completely, turned him to stone. But here, now, she saw it—beneath the rough edges and the bitterness, there was still that part of him she had known.
Cassian looked at her a moment longer, then turned his eyes to the dark beyond the hallway, his voice dropping almost to a murmur. "I survived, Princess. That’s all you need to know."