When she goes .....
The wind howled low and mournful across the jagged peaks of Veilcrest. It carried with it the whisper of snow, but not yet the bite. Aryan sat just outside the threshold of the ancient chamber, his back against the cold stone wall, knees drawn close to his chest. The sky above was deep and endless, silver-streaked clouds drifting slowly across a dome of stars that pulsed like distant memories.
He didn't feel the chill.
Not really.
The cold wasn't what made him shiver.
It was the silence.
An unnatural, echoing quiet that had settled around him like a second skin. The kind of silence that let thoughts in....thoughts he had locked away behind smiles and sarcasm and the easy swagger of a man who never let his heart show.
But now, there was no one to pretend for.
He stared out at the vastness, eyes reflecting starlight, and exhaled slowly. His breath fogged in the air like a spirit departing.
He could still feel the warmth of Elanora's touch on his cheek.
He could still see the way her eyes burned ...not with judgment, but with knowing. The way she looked at him like she wasn't seeing who he pretended to be... but who he used to be. Or maybe who he still was, somewhere beneath all the walls.
"Why did it have to be her?" he murmured, voice hoarse. "Why did I have to fall now?"
He leaned his head back against the stone. The roughness scraped his scalp through his dark, tousled hair, but he welcomed the grounding sensation.
He wasn't sure when it had happened. Maybe the first time she laughed at one of his stupid jokes. Maybe when she trusted him with her fear. Or maybe in the chamber, when she touched his hand like it meant something.
He missed her.
Gods, he missed her.
And she wasn't even that far away.
But it felt like a lifetime.
His fingers curled slightly as if they remembered the shape of hers, and a small, broken laugh slipped from his lips.
"She'd say I'm being dramatic."
He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his palm. There were no tears. Not yet. But they were close, held back by a dam built over years and years of trying not to feel too much.
Aryan's Family .....Family He Lost
A flicker of memory rose unbidden.
A girl...younger, maybe ten....running through fields of gold under a sky just like this. Her laughter was like bells, high and sweet.
"Ary! Faster! You're too slow!"
He'd chased her. Always chasing. Always trying to protect her from everything that might go wrong in a world that wasn't made for innocence.
Then fire.
Smoke. Screams.
A mother who sang lullabies in a language only their family knew, pulling him close as the world crumbled around them.
A father's hand disappearing in the dark.
The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hall of the Guardians. Cold stone. Colder voices.
"You belong to us now."
He was too young to fight it.
So he forgot. Or tried to.
But not tonight.
Tonight the sky looked too much like home.
He buried his face in his hands, the muscles in his jaw tight with the effort of not sobbing.
"I forgot what it felt like to be held... and now I'd give anything to hold her hand again," he whispered. "Elanora..."
Confession in Solitude
The wind picked up, tugging at the hem of his cloak, lifting the edges of his tunic. It hissed across the stone like a voice.
And he spoke back.
Not to it.
To her.
To the stars. To whatever fragment of her might be listening.
"I think I love you."
The words came quietly, like a prayer.
He let them hang in the air, suspended, fragile.
"Not just from this life. From every one before. And I'm so scared I'll lose you again."
His hand trembled as he reached for the pendant around his neck. The same one that had shown him the child who called him brother. He held it up to the starlight, watched it glint with a life of its own.
"What if I fail again? What if I already have?"
The stars didn't answer.
But his heart did.
It beat. It ached. It remembered.
And that had to mean something.
Vow Under Starlight
He pulled a strip of cloth from his belt, wrapped the pendant tightly, and tied it around his wrist.
A mark. A promise.
He stood slowly, legs stiff, but gaze sharp again. A flicker of strength behind the sorrow. He turned toward the cave, where the mist still shifted just inside the shadows.
"I couldn't save them. Not my family. Not you. Not yet."
He closed his eyes.
And opened them with fire.
"But I swear, Elanora... this time I won't fail."
Behind him, the stars continued to shine.
And far, far below, something ancient stirred.
When the Half Night Passed...
The cold air swept over the mountain ridge like a ghost searching for something lost. Aryan sat at the edge of the ancient chamber, the jagged rocks biting into his palms as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the night sky above. Stars glittered like a sea of broken glass, shimmering cold and distant. Behind him, the chamber pulsed with old magic, the memory-shards now still. But the silence outside was heavier than the echoes within.
He had never felt so utterly alone.
The wind tugged at his cloak, but he barely noticed. His heart was somewhere else... buried deep in the warmth of someone who wasn't there.
"Elanora," he whispered, her name like a prayer and a wound all at once.
Her laughter, the spark in her eyes when she challenged him, even the way she got irritated when he joked in the middle of danger.... it haunted him now. He missed her. Not just her presence, but her fire. Her belief in him.
"Why did it have to be her?" he asked the stars, voice ragged. "Why did I have to fall now?"
He had guarded others his whole life. It was what he was trained to do. But no one had ever truly guarded him.
Memories of a Family Lost Again.......
A gust of wind stirred dust around his boots. Aryan closed his eyes, and the cold air turned to the scent of fire.... not the comforting kind, but the kind that destroys. The night blurred, and memory pulled him under.
He saw himself as a boy, maybe eight or nine. Running through a sun-drenched field with a girl smaller than him, her laugh like wind chimes.
"Faster, Aryan! You promised a race!"
Her name was Liora. His little sister.
He remembered the way she clung to his arm during storms, the way she made up stories about cloud creatures and star-spirits. Her voice, her warmth.
Gone.
The fire had taken her. And their mother.
He remembered his mother's lullabies..... soft and sad, always sung while brushing fingers through his hair. And his father, a man who smelled of ash and pine, who taught him how to hold a blade, but also how to hold a promise.
None of them lived past that fire.
After the flames, the Guardians came. They took him in, not with affection but with purpose. He was told to be strong. Not to cry. To serve the balance.
So he learned to bury his grief. Smiled where he was supposed to. Fought when ordered. And forgot, or tried to.
Until now.
Aryan's fists clenched against the stone.
The stars blurred as tears welled in his eyes. One slipped down his cheek. Then another. He didn't stop them this time.
He bent forward, elbows to knees, hiding his face in his hands as he wept.... not the loud kind, but the quiet, broken kind that shakes from the center.
"I think I love you," he said Again, voice barely more than breath. "Not just from this life. From every one before. And I'm so scared I'll lose you again."
The words echoed into the night, swallowed by wind and silence.
He pulled the pendant from beneath his shirt...the twin to Elanora's. He stared at it. Cold, etched with ancient markings, and yet pulsing faintly with light.
In his mind, he saw the girl in the memory-shard.... the one who called him brother. Her eyes held a fire like Elanora's, but her sadness was older. A child left behind.
A family he couldn't save.
His hands trembled. He wrapped the pendant in a strip of cloth torn from his inner lining, then tied it to his wrist like a vow.
The wind howled once more, stronger this time, lifting dust and silver leaves around him. The stars blinked through it, and he looked up as if searching for some sign, some answer.
"I couldn't save them," Aryan said, louder now, to the sky. "Not my family. Not you. Not yet. But I swear, Elanora... this time I won't fail."
Something shifted.
From within the cave behind him, a faint tremor rippled through the stone.... subtle, but real. The mountain was listening.
He wiped his face on his sleeve, rising slowly. The weight in his chest hadn't lessened, but it had shape now. He carried it like a sword.
Somewhere down the path Elanora was walking into flame and shadow. Somewhere, a child was waiting.... the echo of his past and perhaps the key to their future.
And Aryan.... alone beneath the stars.... took his first step not toward the fight, but toward healing.
He didn't smile. But his eyes burned with something new: purpose.