85

85
Kade was quiet when we returned to the cottage.

The kind of quiet that made the walls feel thinner, the hearth colder.

We hadn’t spoken much since the rite. Since the rings. Since the I love yous were said under the hush of the moon.

But it wasn’t distance. Not the kind that pushes people apart.

This was something else.

A silence laced with fear.

I saw it in the way his shoulders stayed tight when he stripped off his shirt. In the way his fingers hesitated at the collar of his tunic like he was peeling off armor he didn’t know how to live without.

He was unraveling.

And he didn’t know if I’d stay through it.

So I did the only thing I could—I stayed close, but didn’t touch. Not yet. I waited.

And when the fire was nothing but embers and the light outside turned silver and soft, he finally sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Lyra, I need to tell you something.”

I crossed the room without a word, sat beside him, our knees touching. “I’m listening.”

He didn’t look at me.

He looked at his hands.

“I know you love me,” he said softly. “But I still don’t understand why.”

That hurt more than I expected it to.

“Kade—”

“No, please. Just let me get this out.”

I nodded, swallowing my protest.

“I spent most of my life doing things I can’t take back,” he said. “Not just killing. Obeying. Serving people who used fear like a leash and calling it duty. Every time I followed an order, every time I didn’t flinch when they screamed, I told myself I was doing it for the greater good. That if I didn’t do it, someone worse would.”

His breath hitched.

“But that was a lie. I was afraid. Afraid of what I’d be without it. Who I’d be. So I stayed in the dark and convinced myself I belonged there.”

I reached for his hand. He let me take it—but his grip was loose, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold on.

“I don’t dream about the fights,” he continued. “Not the blood. Not the battles. I dream about the faces. The ones I didn’t get to know. The ones who begged. The ones who were innocent. And I hear this voice—this version of myself—whispering, ‘You don’t get to be happy. Not after what you’ve done.’”

I squeezed his hand harder.

He looked at me then, eyes rimmed red, voice cracking. “So when you look at me like I’m something good—it terrifies me. Because I keep thinking one day you’ll see what I see.”

I moved to my knees, facing him fully. “Do you know what I see?”

He didn’t answer.

I placed both hands on his face, holding him like something sacred. “I see a man who stepped out of hell to protect someone who meant nothing to the world—and everything to him. I see someone who made a hundred hard choices and still kept a piece of his soul intact.”

His breath was trembling now.

“I see the man who stood between me and death. Who learned how to be soft with hands that were taught only to break. I see Kade. Not the executioner. Not the weapon. You.”

He shook his head. “But what if I break again? What if peace fades and I forget how to be gentle?”

I pressed our foreheads together. “Then I’ll remind you. Over and over. Because love isn’t about never breaking—it’s about having someone to hold the pieces until you can put them back together.”

He finally let out a sob.

And I held him.

He buried his face against my neck, and I wrapped my arms around him like armor, like shelter, like a promise I refused to let go of.

“You don’t have to earn peace,” I whispered. “You just have to choose it.”

He clung to me tighter.

“I’m so tired,” he said.

“I know.”

“I want to believe I deserve this.”

“You do.”

His hands tangled in my shirt like he needed proof I was real.

“You’re mine,” he murmured.

“And you’re mine,” I whispered back. “To keep. To hold. Even on the days when you can’t hold yourself.”

We stayed like that for a long time.

Two people scarred by fire.

But choosing—again and again—not to let it define them.

Because this love?

It wasn’t perfect.

It was earned.

And Kade was learning—

He didn’t have to bleed to be worthy.

He just had to stay.

And let me love him back.