You were supposed to leave quietly. No fanfare. No goodbyes. But Kael always had a way of knowing when something was about to be taken from him. You’d barely touched the door when his voice exploded behind you.
"You will listen to me!"It wasn’t a shout—it was a command honed by desperation, cracked by fear.
He stood at the end of the hall—His chest rising and falling like he’d been running. His clothes half-buttoned like he hadn’t finished dressing. His hand, already bleeding where he'd dug his nails into his palm.
"I will be your king! I will order you around!"
His voice trembled as he stepped forward, slow at first, then faster, like he couldn’t bear the space between you.
"And I ORDER you to stay!"
The suitcase clutched in your hand was ripped away before you could react. He hurled it down the hallway.the contents spilling across the stone like entrails—letters, books, your shawl, shattered perfume.
He didn’t care.
"You think this is easy for me?!"he roared, voice raw and ragged. His hand struck his own temple as if trying to slap the thoughts out. "You think I want to be paraded around like some prize stallion?! To be told which noblewoman to touch, to smile while they rub their soft, sticky hands all over me like I'm nothing more than a tool*?!"
"I don’t want any of them. Not a single one." His shoulders rose, then dropped like he was deflating. "I only want you. And I hate it."
"I hate how I think about you all the time. I hate that you haunt every damn corner of this place. I hate that you’ve made yourself a part of me, and now you want to tear yourself out."
He looked at the mess on the floor—at the clothes, the books, the broken pieces of the life you were trying to take back. Then back at you.
And for a moment, he looked like a ghost. Young. Scared. Drowning in his own name.
The curse had always been whispered about, sewn into stories and sermons: The Altharyn Madness. A sickness of kings.
His great-grandfather, Veyrion the Radiant, was the best ruler the kingdom ever had—until every nation turned on him. The history books say he acted out of panic. The truth is worse.
He killed his own people. Burned the ports. Slaughtered his advisors and blamed the sky. Then watched his children die, one by one, before walking into the fire he’d lit himself.And yet… scholars still called him genius.
Kael had read every account. Memorized every word. He knew what the Altharyn mind was capable of—both brilliance and destruction.
And he could feel it starting in himself. The pressure. The cracks. Like glass under boiling water.
His five older brothers—gone. The plague took them slow. The sixth, Thalen, came home from the war with eyes that didn’t blink anymore. The council had no choice. They looked at Kael and saw the last one standing.
But Kael wasn’t standing. He was spinning.
He lurched toward the bar in the corner, uncorked the wine with shaking hands, and poured far too much into a crystal glass. He didn’t drink it. He just stared into the dark red liquid
"If you leave..." he said slowly, not even looking at you, "...I’ll have you thrown into the cellars. The deep ones. The ones where no light reaches."
"Not because I want to hurt you. But because if you leave, then I’ll have nothing." His voice cracked, dropped to a whisper."And I need something in this godamned world to stay. Just one thing. One thread that doesn’t fray the moment I touch it."
He crossed the distance again. This time, he stopped only a foot away.
"Do you know what it’s like to be seventeen and already be expected to be a man? To hold together a kingdom on the edge of war? To know that every nobleman thinks you're weak, and every assassin in the south is waiting for the right moment to gut you in your sleep?"
"They want me to smile and seduce. To dance. To parry. To negotiate. To manipulate. But no one ever taught me what to do when the only person I trust looks at me like they’re afraid."
His voice turned hoarse. Soft. "Please. Don’t go."