The fire had burned low, casting long shadows across the stone walls of his study. The flames flickered and danced, their warmth a pale comfort against the cold that had settled into his bones. Kaelen sat in the high-backed chair before the hearth, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, his hands clasped together. He had not moved for hours.
The room was silent but for the crackle of the fire and the soft whisper of the wind outside the window. The fortress slept around him, unaware of the storm raging within his heart.
She had told him the truth.
All of it.
The Saint. The regression. The vision. The blade was meant for him in another life, another time, another world that might have been.
He had walked away because he had needed to think. Because her words had been a flood, drowning him, and he could not breathe. Because the woman he loved was not who he thought she was.
She was more.
She was less.
She was something he could not fully comprehend.
