KAEL
The sound of her crying didn't just break me. It unmade me. Each ragged, wet gasp was a fault line splitting through the foundation I'd tried to rebuild without her.
And then, impossibly, it was the only thing putting me back together.
Aria.
She was here. Her weight against my chest, the scent of her hair... real. Not a ghost I'd chased in my sleep. Not a hallucination born of grief and sleep deprivation. Solid. I crushed her against me, my face buried in the curve of her neck, and inhaled like a dying man taking his first breath of air. I had been suffocating. For weeks. For a lifetime.
A hot, sharp pressure built behind my eyes. I tried to choke it back, to be the stone wall I was supposed to be, but it was useless. A tear fell, then another, scalding tracks against my skin, soaking into her hair. I was crying. I never cried. But the relief was a physical violence, tearing this display from a place I kept locked and dark.
