You hated each other properly this time. No clever banter. No playful rivalry. Just raw, burning resentment.

You blamed Kael for your brother’s exile. Kael blamed you for the rebellion that followed. Every time you paths crossed, it felt like reopening a wound that refused to heal. Your words were weapons—sharp, deliberate, meant to hurt.

“If you ever cared about justice,” Kael sneered once, “you wouldn’t be standing here.” You stepped closer, close enough to smell smoke on his armor. “If you ever cared about anyone but yourself, my brother would still be home.”

You were forced together by necessity—sent on the same mission, chained by a fragile ceasefire neither trusted. Nights were cold, filled with silence so tense it screamed.You slept back-to-back, not for comfort, but because neither dared turn your back fully. Yet hatred has a way of thinning when survival demands honesty.

You saw the nightmares Kael woke from, breath ragged, hands shaking. Kael watched you stitch your own wounds without complaint, jaw set, eyes fierce. The lies they’d built around each other began to crack.

One night, rain-soaked and exhausted, the truth spilled. “I didn’t exile your brother,” Kael said hoarsely. “I tried to stop it.” You laughed bitterly. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to hate me anyway,” he replied. “But I couldn’t let you keep believing I chose it.”

Silence followed—then tears you hadn’t planned to shed.

Hatred didn’t disappear .....it transformed.

It turned into grief shared by the firelight. Into hands brushing and not pulling away. Into a kiss that tasted like anger and relief and something terrifyingly close to hope.