"Always."
The word settled between them like a promise the world itself had already accepted.
For a long moment, neither Cael nor Illyen moved. The banquet hall continued around them—music resuming in softened strains, servants gliding once more between marble pillars—but it all felt distant, blurred, as if time had drawn a thin veil around the two of them and left only what truly mattered untouched.
Cael's forehead rested against Illyen's temple, his breath warm, unsteady. He had spoken that word before. He knew it with a certainty that hurt. Yet saying it aloud now felt different—less like a vow made in desperation, and more like one reclaimed.
Illyen closed his eyes.
Something inside him loosened.
Not a full memory—not yet—but a deep, resonant feeling, like a door unlocked but not opened. He felt the echo of Cael's loneliness, the centuries of waking each day with knowledge that could not be shared, the unbearable weight of remembering everything while loving someone who remembered nothing.
"You carried it alone," Illyen murmured.
Cael stiffened, then slowly exhaled.
"Yes."
The single word held lifetimes.
Cael straightened at last, though he did not release Illyen's hand. His fingers were warm now, no longer trembling, as if the worst of the memory had passed. He looked down at their joined hands—the crown prince's pale fingers entwined with the duke's—and something painfully soft crossed his expression.
"I chose to remember," he said quietly.
Illyen looked up. "Chose?"
Cael nodded. His gaze lifted—not to the hall, not to the watching court—but inward, to a place only he could see.
"When the Great Veil fell," he continued, voice steady but low, "there was a moment outside time. A space where the gods asked a question they never should have asked a child… or anyone who loved too deeply."
Illyen's breath caught.
Cael's thumb brushed over the inside of Illyen's wrist, right where his pulse beat strongest. "They said one of us could remember everything. The pain. The truth. The way you died. The way I followed."
Illyen's heart stuttered, the words the way I followed ringing sharply in his chest.
"And the other?" Illyen asked.
"The other," Cael said, "would forget. Would live again without the weight. Without the grief."
Illyen understood then. Not with his mind—not fully—but with something older, deeper. The answer had already been written into his bones.
"You chose yourself," he whispered.
Cael shook his head immediately. "No."
His grip tightened, gentle but unyielding. "I chose you."
The truth of it struck Illyen like a quiet thunderclap.
"I knew," Cael went on, eyes shining now, "that if you remembered everything from the start, it would destroy you. You were always too kind. Too willing to carry pain that wasn't yours. So I chose to remember alone. I chose to wake up every life knowing exactly who you were… and waiting for you to find me again."
Illyen's vision blurred.
Fragments stirred—soft and disjointed, like broken reflections on water. A child's laughter in a sunlit garden. Two boys sitting too close beneath a flowering tree. A crown set aside, forgotten in the grass. And always—always—blue eyes watching him with a devotion so fierce it felt like shelter.
"You waited," Illyen said hoarsely.
"I did." Cael smiled faintly. "Every time."
The wineglass still rested forgotten in Illyen's other hand. He lowered it slowly to the table beside them, the soft clink of glass against marble sounding far too loud in the quiet that had settled between their hearts.
"I don't remember everything yet," Illyen admitted. "But I can feel it now. The shape of it. The love. The loss."
Cael's gaze softened. "That's enough for now."
The Great Veil had not fallen all at once. Cael knew that. Memory returned in fragments, in dreams and moments like this—through touch, through fear, through love that refused to remain buried. The gods had never intended for the truth to surface so gently, but Cael had learned long ago that Illyen's heart opened best when guided, not forced.
"You were there," Illyen continued slowly, as if listening to something beyond himself. "When I made the choice too."
Cael's breath hitched.
"Yes."
Illyen swallowed. "I chose to drink."
The words trembled as they left him, fragile but real.
"You smiled," Cael whispered, the memory sharp as a blade. "You smiled at me like it was nothing. Like you were only stepping into the rain."
Tears burned at the corners of Illyen's eyes, though he did not yet fully understand why. "I didn't know," he said. "But I knew you. And that was enough."
Silence wrapped around them again—thick, reverent.
At the edge of the hall, Lysa watched quietly, saying nothing this time. She did not need to. Some moments were not meant for witnesses.
Illyen shifted closer, resting his forehead against Cael's shoulder, just as naturally as if his body remembered the shape of him even when his mind did not.
"I'm scared," Illyen confessed softly.
Cael's arm came around him without hesitation, protective and familiar. "I know."
"Of remembering everything," Illyen said. "Of what it might break."
Cael kissed his hair—light, reverent, barely there. "Then we will remember together. This time, you won't wake up alone. And neither will I."
Illyen's fingers curled into Cael's sleeve. The crown prince's uniform was warm beneath his touch, solid and real.
"Together," Illyen said again.
"Always," Cael replied.
The thread between them—once a burden, once a chain—glowed softly now, no longer pulling them backward into grief, but forward into truth. Memory would return. Pain would follow. But so would healing.
And this time, the past would not claim them in silence.
As the banquet hall slowly returned to life, the Night of the Gilded Chalice receded into shadow—not forgotten, but finally acknowledged. No longer a wound carried by one heart alone, but a shared truth, held gently between two souls who had already survived the worst.
Bound not by fate alone.
But by choice.
Thank you for your support.(>﹏<)