My Ruin, My Redemption
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Kael's Past Life — The Final Day of the First War
Kael's POV
They said we were never meant to be. Not because of fate, or prophecy, or bloodlines. But because love, true love was never built to survive war. Not ours. Not the kind that cracks the sky and bleeds into the bones of kings.
I remember the way she looked at me that morning.
Not with tenderness. Not with rage. But with something far worse.
Forgiveness.
We had hours left before the world ended. Maybe less.
I should've held her. I should've begged.
But I was too proud. Too broken.
Too cursed to understand that she wasn't mine to keep, only mine to lose.
Her name was Liana.
Witch-born. Flame-touched. The soul I'd been tied to long before I ever understood what it meant to love someone enough to die. Or worse, to live without them.
And gods, I tried to stop her.
I tried to bind her wrists with magic, to seal her away from the battlefield. She burned through it with a whisper. Her flame answered only to her.
"I won't let you face him alone," she said.
Her eyes held mine like she could still see the boy I used to be before the thrones, before the darkness, before I killed in her name and smiled doing it.
She touched my face like it hadn't been hardened by centuries.
And I — I almost believed I could be worthy.
The Shrouded One had risen again, torn from death by vengeance and blood sacrifice.
He was once my brother.
He was once our friend.
Now, he was everything we weren't strong enough to destroy.
Except her.
Liana was the only one left who could challenge him.
But the cost… the cost was always her.
I remember the scream.
Mine or hers — I don't know.
I remember running, the sound of bones breaking beneath my feet, the smell of fire and ash and her.
And then I saw it.
Liana, my Liana standing in a circle of ruined sigils, the flame pouring from her palms as if the gods themselves had lit her veins. Her eyes glowed white. Her voice was thunder.
She wasn't casting a spell.
She was becoming one.
The Shrouded One tried to devour her soul.
She gave it to the flames instead.
She chose death.
Not because she wanted to leave…
But because she believed I could live without her.
And when the sky cracked open and her body fell, when her magic consumed the very air I breathed — I didn't scream.
I couldn't.
I simply walked into the fire after her.
And the world called it a curse.
They say I'm immortal now.
That I walk through centuries, untouched by time, haunted by blood and memory.
They call me the Demon King.
Monster. Tyrant. Ghost.
But none of those names matter.
Because mine has never changed.
I am Kael Draven.
And she was my ruin.
My redemption.
My reason for surviving the end — so I could find her again.
Even if she doesn't remember me.
Even if she never wants to.
Even if the next time I say her name, she runs.