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VEYLAN

I do not sleep. I do not stop.

The war is over, but my battle has just begun.

I search for her like a man possessed. Like a man who has already lost everything and does not care what it takes to get it back.

She is gone. And it is my fault.

The days turns into weeks.

The ruins of the battlefield fade into the past. The broken stones, the scorched earth, the blood-soaked altars—they mean nothing to me now.

All I see is where she should be.

The ghost of her lingers in every shadow. In every cold gust of wind. In every sleepless night where I wake, reaching for someone who is no longer there.

She should have died.

I killed her with my own hands. I watched her blood spill across the altar, felt it soak into my skin. But she came back, different. Stronger. Colder. Unforgiving.

She left me standing in the wreckage of everything we had built.

And I let her go.

I was a fool.

I should have chased her the moment she walked away. Should have grabbed her, forced her to see what she had left behind.

But I was a coward.

Now, she does not want to be found.

And yet, I still search. I do not deserve her… but I cannot live an existence without her.

The air in House Drazharel is thick with dust and magic. The stone walls remember the war, but they do not mourn it. My brothers carry on—meetings, rebuilding, restoring power. The kingdom is stable now. The people kneel. The blood has dried.

But I am not among them.

I return again—empty-handed, dirt-streaked, and exhausted—from another fruitless search.

The war room falls quiet as I push the door open. Drathis, Xalith, and Maelrik are already gathered, their eyes heavy with unspoken judgment.

Drathis breaks the silence first.

“Well? Another day. Another ghost?”

I say nothing. Just drop my sword on the table, the metal clanging against the wood with finality.

Xalith raises an eyebrow, lazily flipping a dagger between his fingers. “You look like hell.”

“Do I?” My voice is hollow.

Drathis pushes off the table and walks toward me, arms crossed. “You can’t keep doing this. You’re tearing yourself apart for someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

“She does,” I say, more to myself than to them.

Xalith scoffs. “She left, Veylan. She didn’t look back. She didn’t leave a note. She didn’t ask to be followed.”

Maelrik, quiet as always, finally speaks. “But she left a trail.”

That stills the room.

I glance at him sharply. “What?”

Maelrik nods, slow. “She’s not hiding. Not really. Not from us. There’s power in her wake. She’s… changing something. She’s fighting, becoming powerful and feared in her wake. Whispers of her version of justice being passed around. She fights oppression.”

“She’s becoming something,” I whisper.

“She already has,” Drathis mutters. “And you weren’t part of that choice.”

“I should have stopped her,” I say. “When she walked away.”

“Why didn’t you?” Xalith snaps. “You’re a coward and stupid. You don’t deserve to lead if you can’t keep your woman in line.”

My jaw tightens. “Because I broke her. She trusted me, and I killed her.”

Silence stretches between us.

Drathis exhales, shaking his head. “She’s alive. She walked off that battlefield. That wasn’t because of you—it was in spite of you.”

Xalith leans forward, eyes sharp. “And now you’re hoping to what? Follow her into oblivion? Hope she forgives you?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not hoping for anything. I’m not asking for her forgiveness. I just want to be where she is.”

They all stare at me like I’ve already lost.

Maybe I have.

I turn to leave, but Maelrik’s voice stops me.

“You’re not our general anymore.”

I pause.

“I know.”

“You’re not the male who led us through fire.”

“I never wanted to be.”

Drathis steps closer. “Then what are you now?”

I face them, eyes burning with something old and broken. “I’m hers.”

And then I’m gone. I leave them behind.

I do not care. I do not want power. I do not want Drazharel’s throne.

I’m a fool because I realized it too late that I only want her. I continue my quest to find her.

I track her the way I would hunt an enemy—the only way I know how. What has anyone ever been to me but an enemy? I follow the remnants of her magic, the places where the world still bends to her presence.

Every step she takes leaves a scar in the world.

A ruined tavern where men whisper of a blue-eyed girl who walked in, who did not speak, who left behind nothing but fear.

A dying forest where the air itself hums with her power, where even the animals refuse to make a sound.

A river that should not exist, glowing like liquid starlight, reflecting a sky that has never known a god.

I follow her footprints in the mud, her shadow in the mist.

And yet, she is always gone before I arrive.

She does not want me to find her.

But I will. I have to.