He hadn’t meant to hurt you. Not with his words, not with the silence that followed after the argument, and certainly not with the cold look he gave as you walked away. But pride… it had always been his flaw.

Days passed. You didn’t return to his temple. You didn’t look for him in the Sanctuary. And for the first time in a long while, the silence that once gave him peace now suffocated him.

He trained harder. Stayed out longer. Hoping the ache in his chest would dull, but it didn’t. Because he remembered your face—how your eyes looked just before you turned. He remembered your touch, now absent from his life. He remembered you, and it burned.

One evening, cloaked in shadows, he waited outside your room. Just to feel your presence through the door. He didn’t knock. He didn’t call your name. He simply stood there, forehead leaning against the wood, whispering apologies you’d never hear.

If only you opened that door. If only you saw the way his fingers trembled, clenched at his sides like a man begging to be forgiven without knowing how.

He would never beg—not for power, not for status. But for you?

For you, he would kneel.