The mood inside the fortress had changed. Where once there had been cautious unity, now suspicion clung to every corridor like a creeping fog. Aria had withdrawn—her presence a whisper of silver through the halls, eyes shadowed, words few.
Kael noticed. He noticed everything. But instead of reaching out, he watched from afar, as uncertainty rooted in his heart.
It had started with a letter. An anonymous warning left on his war table:
"The Anchor has been compromised. She plots with Raekon. Do not trust her. She will bring ruin."
Kael crushed the parchment, but the seed of doubt was planted. A poisonous root that began to twist and tighten each time he saw her whispering with Raekon, every time she flinched at his touch or avoided his eyes. The Aria he knew—no, the Aria he loved—was changing, and he couldn't grasp why.
He started watching her more closely—her meetings with Raekon, her solitary walks at night, the strange magical flares that pulsed from her room. And when she refused to answer where she had gone after moonfall one night, Kael snapped.
"You're hiding something from me!" he roared, slamming a fist into the wall beside her. The stone cracked under the weight of his fury.
Aria's expression didn't flinch. Only her eyes wavered—eyes that held exhaustion, pain, and an unspoken truth she dared not voice.
"I'm protecting you, Kael."
"By sneaking around? Lying about where you go at night?"
She turned away from him, her shoulders rigid. "Some truths bring only more danger. You wouldn't understand."
"I would understand if you trusted me," he growled.
"I've trusted you with everything!" she snapped, spinning around. "But some things go beyond you and me. There are prophecies, Kael. Powers waking inside me that I don't even understand. If I told you everything, it could get you killed!"
"Then you don't trust me," he said, voice low, bitter. "You're still alone in this, just like always."
The silence between them stretched like a wound torn open.
"I don't owe you every corner of my soul just because you said you chose me," she whispered.
His rage faltered. But the wound was done.
---
That night, Aria left.
No goodbyes. No notes. Only a single lock of her red hair left on the pillow of her bed and a burst of energy scorched into the earth outside the gates. A storm had rolled in with her absence, and thunder cracked the sky as if mourning her departure.
The fortress woke in chaos.
Kael tore through every chamber, a whirlwind of fury and regret. He confronted Raekon in the mage tower, pinned Nyla against a wall in the training yard, interrogated scouts without rest.
Gone. She was gone.
Lyra returned from a failed tracking mission, carrying something clutched in her hand.
A bloodstained dagger.
Kael recognized it instantly. It had been a gift—from him to Aria. One etched with a crescent moon.
The blood wasn't hers. It was from a demon wolf—a creature of the Whisperer's making. Raekon examined it, then stared at Kael.
"She was fighting them off alone. Protecting the border."
Kael's heart plummeted.
"I... I accused her," he whispered.
No one responded.
That night, in the hollow silence of his chambers, Kael found the final piece—hidden beneath Aria's pillow. A letter sealed in silver wax.
He broke it open with trembling hands.
---
Kael,
You told me once that I was your fate. But fate isn't always kind. I couldn't let you walk into a trap meant for me. That's why I kept secrets. That's why I ran.
Not because I stopped loving you.
But because I loved you enough to leave.
If you find this, I may be gone... or worse. But know this: I never betrayed you. Never.
—A.
---
Kael roared in agony, the sound of it shaking the windowpanes. His wolf form nearly surfaced, clawing for release, but he held it back by sheer force of will. He fell to his knees, the letter crumpling in his hand.
Nyla found him like that and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"She's not dead," she said. "Not yet. But if we wait... she might be."
And Kael knew. He had to go after her. Even if it meant entering the most cursed realm of all.
Even if it meant walking into the Whisperer's trap.
Even if she never forgave him.
---