He didn't tell me where we were going.
Just reached for my hand in the hall, laced his fingers through mine, and said, "Come with me."
No guards.
No Talon.
No Cassair.
It was the first time I realized Kaelen could disappear in his own house. That even here—among titles, eyes, and legacy—he still had secrets only he could touch.
He led me through a narrow passage I'd never seen before, behind the council chamber and beneath the west wing. It smelled like old wood and silence.
When we stepped through the final door, I stopped breathing.
Books lined the walls. Real ones. Handbound, gold-etched, some cracked with age. There was a fireplace, dark velvet chairs, a grand window facing the southern cliffs—and a small piano tucked in the corner, untouched but polished.
It was warm. Quiet. Human.
Nothing like the Dravik war rooms.
"This isn't on any floor plan," I said softly.
He nodded. "It's not meant to be."
I walked to the piano. Pressed one key. Soft. Hollow.
Kaelen stood by the window, looking not at me, but at the sea beyond the glass.
"My mother used to bring me here," he said. "When I had nightmares."
I turned.
"She'd sit at that piano and play until I stopped shaking."
I imagined it—him, small and scared, curled in a chair, listening to music while the world demanded he become a killer.
"She taught me how to read," he added. "Not the generals. Not the house tutors. Her. She said if I could understand stories, I'd survive the lies."
"You loved her," I said.
"Yes."
"She's the only thing you let yourself miss."
He finally looked at me. "Until now."
The weight of it hit harder than I expected.
I crossed the room, slower now.
He didn't move.
"I brought you here," he said, voice quieter, "because I need you to see the part of me no one else gets to know. The part I never gave to war. Or duty. Or fear."
He touched my hand again. Gently.
"I don't want to hide from you anymore."
I swallowed hard.
The war inside me wasn't between love and hate.
It was between before and after.
Before this moment, I still believed I could leave him untouched.
After this—
I wasn't sure anymore.
I let him hold my hand in the dark.
Not because I trusted him.
Not because I was weak.
But because for one breath, one blink, I wanted to.
Kaelen sat down in the chair beside the fireplace. The one that still held the shape of the boy he used to be.
"I made a mistake once," he said. "Before the council accepted me. Before I was anything but a name they didn't respect."
I said nothing.
He stared into the cold hearth. "There was a boy in our outer territory. A Valtore loyalist. Young. Maybe sixteen. He'd been caught spreading letters—propaganda, they called it."
"Was it?" I asked softly.
"It was truth," he said. "About my father. What he did to his wife. What he did to his enemies. It was all true."
I held my breath.
"I was told to make an example of the boy," Kaelen continued. "Publicly. Ruthlessly. That's what the council wanted. That's how I'd prove I was loyal to the Dravik name."
"What did you do?"
"I followed orders."
He looked up at me, eyes steady but shadowed.
"I stood in front of that crowd. Gave the signal. Let my men beat him within an inch of his life while I looked his mother in the eye."
A sick feeling rolled in my stomach.
"He survived," Kaelen said. "But he couldn't walk after that. Couldn't speak."
"And you regret it."
"Every time I close my eyes."
He ran a hand through his hair.
"That was the moment I became the heir they wanted. And the man my mother would've never recognized."
I knelt beside him slowly, so we were at eye level.
"You've done worse since then," I said.
"I know."
"But that's the one you carry."
"I don't know why."
I did.
Because it was the first time he'd killed something human in himself—and left it bleeding.
Kaelen touched my face. Just barely. A thumb grazed my cheek like he wasn't sure he had the right.
"I swore I'd never use power to make someone feel small again."
"Then why marry me?" I asked, my voice tight. "Why take me away from everything I knew and pretend it was peace?"
His hand dropped.
"I didn't think you'd stay," he whispered. "And when you did, I didn't know what to do with the parts of me that wanted you to."
My heart cracked.
Because it was real.
Raw.
Unguarded.
And for one terrifying moment—I wanted to forgive him.
Even before I knew what he'd done.
He stood without a word and walked to the far corner of the room.
There, in a drawer hidden behind a sliding panel, Kaelen pulled out a small velvet bundle. The way he held it—careful, reverent—I knew it mattered.
He sat back down beside me and unwrapped it slowly.
A leather-bound journal. The edges were worn, and the spine cracked. Its cover smelled faintly of lavender and time.
He handed it to me.
"What is it?" I asked softly.
"My mother's journal."
I froze.
"She wrote it during her last three years," Kaelen said. "While she was still trying to survive my father. It's the only thing I took from her room after she died."
"You've read it?"
"Every word. A hundred times."
"Why give it to me?"
His voice didn't shake. But it was quieter than I'd ever heard it.
"Because if I'm wrong about you, I want her to be the last mistake I make."
I opened the first page. The handwriting was elegant and slanted. Feminine but sharp. It reminded me of someone.
It reminded me of me.
"If this world swallows me whole, may my son rise above its belly?"
I closed it gently and looked up.
"You trust me with this?"
He nodded.
"I haven't even decided what we are," I whispered.
"Then decide with her words in your hands," he said. "She'd have wanted you to know me. All of me."
I held the journal to my chest.
And hated that it felt like it belonged there.
Because he didn't know.
Not yet.
He didn't know what I'd found.
He didn't know his name was on my father's lips in death.
He didn't know I was already starting to plan the day I might have to bury him, too.
And still—he gave me this.
His mother.
His truth.
His heart.
I could feel it now, between us.
Something fragile. Something real.
And maybe, just maybe… something doomed
I sat alone in my chambers, the journal opened across my lap.
Kaelen had left me in the hidden room with only a quiet nod. No kiss. No touch. Just trust.
The weight of it still sat in my bones.
Candlelight danced across the page as I turned it gently, afraid the ink might vanish if I breathed too hard.
Halfway through, I found the passage that stopped me.
"The men in this house do not fear death. They fear silence. They fear softness. They fear a woman who doesn't flinch when they raise their voices. I've stopped flinching. I think that's when they started planning my end."
My breath caught.
I read it again.
And again.
Not because I needed clarity—but because it felt like a mirror. A secret passed from one survivor to another.
Kaelen's mother hadn't died a victim.
She'd died unbent.
And here I was, decades later, in the same halls.
The difference?
I wasn't planning to die.
I was planning to win.
I closed the book, held it to my chest, and whispered to no one:
"I won't flinch either."