The palace courtyard was quiet at this hour, draped in a soft golden glow as the evening sun melted into the horizon. The shadows stretched long against the stone pavement, reaching like silent hands toward Illyen as he walked, slowly, quietly, as though afraid his footsteps would disturb something fragile in the air.
His mind had been unsteady since the memories returned — not all at once, but in fragments sharp enough to cut through him. A voice calling his name from centuries ago. A touch on his wrist. A boy's laughter echoing in an orchard. A promise whispered beneath a dying tree.
And a face he had forgotten.
No… a face he had been made to forget.
Cael.
The name alone pressed painfully against his chest.
Illyen rubbed his temples. The late autumn wind brushed his hair back, cool and tender, almost like a familiar hand. "Why… why him?" he whispered into the quiet.
He did not know how long he stood there until footsteps approached — steady, unmistakable.
Cael always walked like someone trying not to disturb the earth.
"Illyen," Cael called softly.
Illyen turned. The sight of Cael standing beneath the dying sunlight — his blue eyes dimmed with worry, shadows collecting at the edge of his lashes — stirred something deep inside him. Something so old it felt like a prayer buried in dust.
"You're outside alone again," Cael said. "Your healer told me not to let you wander without resting."
"I can walk," Illyen murmured. "I'm not breaking."
Cael's gaze trembled. "You're allowed to… lean on someone."
Illyen looked away. The sky above them deepened into amber. "Cael… I remember some things."
Cael's breath caught — so quietly Illyen wouldn't have heard it if not for the aching silence between them.
"What do you remember?" Cael asked, barely above a whisper.
Illyen hesitated.
A hand reaching for him. A voice crying his name. A promise — I will find you again, even if it takes lifetimes. A boy with a prince's crown, standing in a storm of cherry blossoms.
And a warmth he had trusted more than life itself.
But he couldn't say any of that.
Not when the truth of it made his heart shake.
"Just… pieces," Illyen said at last. "Like broken glass. Sharp. And out of order."
Cael lowered his head. "That's my fault."
"What?"
"I remembered you," Cael whispered, "long before you could ever remember me. I carried centuries alone. I thought I could handle it. I thought—"
His voice cracked. "…I thought watching over you silently was enough."
The wind stilled.
Illyen's breath caught as a burning ache rose inside him — part sympathy, part confusion, part something deeper he didn't have the courage to name.
"Cael," he said slowly. "You don't have to burden yourself like that."
"I wasn't burdened," Cael said. "I was… grateful. To see you breathing again. To see you living again."
His voice softened into a quiet, trembling truth.
"Loving you in silence was still more joy than losing you."
Illyen's heart jolted.
The words sank deep, like water seeping into cracked stone. The sincerity behind them was almost too heavy to hold. Illyen turned away again, pressing a hand to his chest as if trying to calm the frantic beating inside.
"I don't know how to handle emotions tied to a life I can't fully remember," Illyen said quietly. "When I try to reach for the memories, it feels like the past is reaching back… and pulling too hard."
Cael stepped closer. Not touching — never touching without permission — but close enough that Illyen could feel his warmth in the fading light.
"I won't force you," Cael murmured. "Your memories are yours. Your pace is yours. I'm only here to make sure you don't drown in them."
"Why?" Illyen whispered, frustrated. "Why do you care so much?"
Cael's eyes softened with a grief too old to belong to someone so young.
"Because I promised," he said. "Even when time took everything from me — even when I woke up in a new life with a heart full of someone no one else remembered — I promised."
Illyen shook his head. "A promise from a life I don't recall…"
"Still binds me," Cael finished for him.
Illyen felt something inside him tremble — a thread, thin and faint, tugging from across lifetimes.
The ache grew deeper.
"You talk as though we were…"
His voice trailed off.
Cael looked away, shoulders tense. "We were important to each other."
Important.
The word felt too small. Like calling the ocean a puddle.
Illyen stared at Cael's profile. "Tell me… were we happy?"
Cael's lips parted — a faint, trembling memory flickering in his eyes.
"Yes," Cael whispered. "Before everything went wrong… we were incredibly happy."
The answering warmth in Illyen's chest frightened him.
A fragile, beautiful thing.
Like a flower blooming in winter.
"Cael," Illyen murmured, "when I close my eyes… I see a pair of hands reaching out to me. I feel like I used to take that hand without hesitation."
Cael's breath shuddered. "You did."
"Then why does my chest hurt?"
"Because you're remembering what your heart never forgot."
Illyen stared at him, stunned by the beauty of those words.
The silence stretched, golden and soft — but heavy.
Cael took one quiet step back, offering Illyen space.
"You don't need to rush," he said gently. "I've waited lifetimes. I can wait a little more."
Illyen swallowed, eyes stinging.
"Cael…"
"Hm?"
"Stay close," Illyen whispered. "Just… don't go far."
Cael's eyes widened — then softened into something indescribably warm.
"I won't," he said, voice steady. "Not anymore."
Illyen let out a shaky breath. The wind brushed between them again — gentle, almost affectionate — and for the first time, Illyen felt something like peace settle into his bones.
A thought rose quietly within him:
If souls truly remember, then maybe… maybe mine is starting to find its way back.
And though he didn't say it aloud, Cael felt it too.
A thread pulled tight between them.
Fragile. Trembling.
Alive.