The palace gardens were quieter now, hushed beneath the weight of summer's heat. The air was heavy with the scent of roses and warm stone, the fountain's steady trickle the only sound weaving through the silence. It was hard to imagine that once this place had been alive with shouts and laughter, the sharp swish of arrows and the clash of wooden swords ringing beneath the trees. Those echoes had long faded, slipping into corners of memory where time softened their edges.
Illyen, sixteen now, moved slowly along the stone path, his steps unhurried. His fingers brushed the carved balustrade, each groove cool beneath his touch, as though the stone could anchor him to something real. And yet nothing felt steady—not since that day in the training yard, when Cael's hand had stopped his blade mid-swing. The memory gnawed at him. Not the fight itself, but the unshakable way it had left him feeling—off balance, unsteady, as though the ground itself shifted beneath the crown prince's gaze.
"Illyen."
The voice cut clean through his thoughts. He turned sharply, heart stuttering.
Cael stood at the edge of the fountain, arms crossed, posture loose but deliberate. Sunlight caught in the strands of his golden hair, brightening the blue of his eyes until they seemed almost unreal. He looked as if he belonged wholly to the garden, as if its calm and sunlit beauty had been made to frame him.
"You—" Illyen began, but the words faltered on his tongue. Everything he wanted to say felt too fragile, too small to match the weight pressing at his chest.
Cael tilted his head slightly, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "You fight like a duke's son," he said lightly. "But you run like one, too."
Heat surged into Illyen's cheeks. His pride bristled. "I'm not a child anymore," he snapped. But even to his own ears, the words sounded thin, unconvincing.
For the briefest moment, Cael's expression shifted. The sharpness in his gaze softened, shadows slipping into something quieter, almost wistful. "Maybe not," he said at last. "But some lessons are never outgrown."
Illyen's eyes dropped to the water. Their reflections shimmered side by side, broken and reformed with each ripple. It unsettled him—the way their images clung together, refusing to separate, as though the water itself remembered a truth he could not name. Something invisible tugged at him, tightening like a thread drawn taut.
In the far corner of the garden, an arrow lay forgotten, half-buried in the grass. The breeze stirred it, and it quivered faintly, as if reaching for the past. Illyen's breath hitched. His fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, to grasp something—anything—that could explain why the air between them felt so heavy, so alive. But he did not move. Pride held him still.
Cael did.
He stepped closer, slow and unhurried, as though the space between them was always meant to vanish. His voice dropped low, softer now, almost dangerous in its gentleness. "Do you remember the tree?"
The question struck deep. Illyen's heart stumbled in his chest. "I—" He faltered, throat dry. Something in him longed to answer yes, to cling to a memory just beyond reach, but fear gnawed at the edges. What if remembering brought pain? What if it brought loss?
"Beneath it," Cael whispered, gaze steady, "you weren't just the duke's son. You were…" His voice trailed off, leaving the words unfinished, suspended in the charged air between them. Yet the weight of them lingered, pressing down on Illyen's chest until he could hardly breathe.
Illyen forced himself to look up, meeting Cael's eyes. This time, he did not flinch. In the silence that followed, something unspoken passed between them—something older than both of them, as if woven into their very bones. Bonds once forged, the silence seemed to say, do not break.
"Why do you always follow me?" Illyen asked suddenly. His voice was sharp, but it trembled. "Why do you care so much about what I do?"
Cael's lips curved, a smile that carried both warmth and shadow. "Because someone has to," he said simply. "And you're impossible."
The retort Illyen wanted to give never came. His chest tightened, his hands grew clammy, and his mind scattered beneath a strange warmth he couldn't name. It wasn't anger, though he wished it were. Memories tugged at him faintly, fragments of moments he couldn't piece together—flashes of blue eyes, laughter beneath branches, a figure who always appeared when he least expected it.
The sun dipped lower, spilling molten gold across the stones of the courtyard. Illyen turned his face toward the light, desperate for something steady, but the thread between them only pulled tighter. He wanted to run, to escape the intensity of Cael's gaze—but even as he shifted back a step, he felt himself drawn closer, bound to something he could neither see nor understand.
And Cael… did not let go.
A single leaf broke free from the tree above, drifting lazily between them. Illyen's hand twitched with the urge to catch it, to hold on to something tangible, but he froze. The silence lingered instead, heavy and alive, the invisible thread humming beneath his skin.
He didn't understand it—not yet.
But he knew this much: whatever tethered him to Cael, it was not finished.
Not yet.