He remembered noise. Crashing glass. Voices outside his door—too loud, too close. Someone was trying to come in again. They always did. They always wanted something.

“Don’t come closer,” he had said. Or shouted. He wasn’t sure anymore. His throat hurt. His heart hurt more.

There was sweat in his eyes, and blood—perhaps not real, perhaps memory. He couldn’t tell what was real anymore. He saw faces on the walls sometimes, heard whispers in the cracks. They all had his voice. They all said the same thing. He’s gone. You lost him.

He gripped the sword tighter. The weight grounded him. He had been emperor once; swords had meaning. Now it was just a shard of something that used to keep him alive.

Someone moved. A guard. Foolish boy. “Traitors,” he hissed, though he didn’t know why. Everyone was a traitor these days. Everyone but him. And Him.

The thought made his chest ache. He didn’t want to think of the prince. Not again. Not now. Eight years was too long. The memories came like knives when he tried to remember His face. He could only recall the warmth, the laughter, the little defiant tilt of his chin when they argued— You don’t understand me, Father. And he hadn’t.

There was a sound in the hall. A voice he knew and didn’t know. The air shifted. The guards went silent.

He turned.

The figure stood framed in the doorway, tall, steady, everything that Kelian was not. There was light behind him, and for a heartbeat it blinded him—his son, his boy, his prince, returned from the grave his absence had carved into Kelian’s soul.

His mouth went dry. His knees almost gave out. “You,” he whispered, the word trembling as if afraid to be heard. “You… came back…”

But then came the doubt. The fear. The world never gave him miracles; it only mocked him. He saw His face again and again in dreams, in shadows, in candlelight. Always vanishing when he reached for Him. “No…” He shook his head. “No, no—you can’t be real.”

The prince didn’t speak. He just looked at him. Calm. Like he used to when he was small, pretending to be brave in front of the other children.

Kelian felt something snap. “You left me!” he heard himself say. The sound of his own voice startled him. “You left me to rot! You—” His hand rose before he knew it, the sword heavy, shaking. “Why now? Why come back now?! Eight years, eight years!”

He moved, or maybe fell forward. The strike was clumsy, desperate—nothing like the emperor he once was. The prince didn’t even flinch. His hand caught Kelian’s wrist, stopped the blade mid-air.

The contact burned.

Kelian’s breath hitched. The sword clattered to the floor. His arm trembled, then gave out completely. The strength fled his body all at once, leaving him hollow.

And then, as if the years between them had folded into a single breath, He was there—close, real, holding him up. Kelian could smell the faint trace of smoke and steel on Him, the scent of someone who had fought to survive. For him.

“You came back,” he whispered again. This time it didn’t sound like a question. It was a confession. A prayer.

He sank to his knees, clutching at the prince’s clothes, fingers digging into the fabric as if it might dissolve if he let go. “You came back… my son… my prince…” His voice cracked, the words spilling in broken fragments. “Don’t go again… please don’t go…”

He felt arms steady him, warm, firm, and he sobbed—not with the fury of an emperor, but with the weakness of a man who had been left alone too long with his ghosts.

The world blurred. The guards outside whispered. The air was still heavy with dust and ruin.

But for a fleeting, fragile moment—Kelian could breathe again. Because He was here. And even if it was a dream, he would not let it go.