Caelen followed them in a silence so profound it felt like a mourning rite.
He walked five paces behind, his eyes fixed on the rhythmic sway of Eris's cloak. In her arms, Rael looked smaller than he had only moments ago, his head tucked into the crook of her neck, his small fingers tangled in the white-gold silk of her hair. It was a tableau of a life Caelen had once dismissed as impossible... the mother, the son, and the shared blood that bound them.
His heart, usually a steady drum of duty and Southern resolve, felt dangerously full. Seeing Eris fight back tears as she caressed the boy's cheek... watching that legendary, terrifying Fire Queen crumble under the weight of a child's touch... undid him. It was a treasure he had held in his hands for years, only to treat it like dross. He had been a man standing in a rain of gold, complaining that he was gettingg wet.
The guilt did not just sting; it strangled. It sat in his throat like a handful of dry ash.
