Chapter 24 - Kieran

Chapter 24 - Kieran
The hallway outside Damien’s cell feels colder now. Like the air itself was listening, absorbing every word and storing it in the stone. I climb the stairs slowly, each step louder than the last, echoing back up at me as if the ground wants to pull me down again. 

I don’t speak to the guards; I don’t look at anyone I pass. I move like a shadow with too much weight, like something not quite alive but too stubborn to collapse.

Kellan’s quarters are in the west wing, past the armory and the indoor training yard where I once broke a man’s jaw for looking too long at what I claimed. That was before this. Before Quinn. Before the bond I keep trying to deny started coiling itself around my spine like a noose.

By the time I reach his door, my fist is already curling.

The door creaks open, and I step inside, eyes scanning the room automatically. Kellan is sprawled across the couch with his boots up on the table, a thick stack of war records in one hand and a silver dagger twirling between his fingers in the other. 

He doesn’t look up right away; he never does. He waits, calculating the weight of my footsteps, the tension in my shoulders, the way I close the door behind me without a word.

“You went to see him,” Kellan says, like he’s been expecting this.

“I did,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair and moving to the edge of the stone hearth. There’s no fire going, but I stare into it anyway. “He’s still playing games.”

“Of course he is,” Kellan says, setting the records down and sitting up, resting his elbows on his knees. “Damien doesn’t know how to speak in anything but riddles and threats. You knew that before you went down there.”

My fingers curl against the back of the chair, the leather groaning beneath the grip I didn’t mean to tighten. “He said it wasn’t betrayal.”

“Wasn’t it?” he tilts his head, watching me the way he always does when I’m not saying what I should. “Because last I checked, siding with the one witch we’d outlawed after she tried to curse half our bloodline feels an awful lot like betrayal.”

“He said he did it to save me,” I grit out.

That earns me silence.

I glance up, and Kellan’s mouth is pressed into a hard line. His eyes flicker, reading more than I say—more than I show—and I hate how easily he does it. He’s always known how to see through the armor, through the quiet, through the fucking detachment I’ve spent years perfecting.

“To save you from what?” he finally asks.

I don’t answer immediately because the words feel like ash.

“He thinks the girl,” I start, the words sticking, “the redhead… Quinn… He says she’ll be my downfall. That she’s the reason he ran. That he wasn’t trying to kill me, just the bond.”

Kellan leans back again, running a hand down his face and letting out a breath that sounds too heavy for the room. “So it’s true then.”

I look at him sharply. “What?”

“The bond,” he says flatly. “I wondered. You didn’t say anything after the sentencing, you never do. But you’ve been…off. Since she got here.”

I don’t confirm it, but I don’t deny it either.

“She smells like a storm,” I admit, my jaw tight. “Like something that never should’ve made it past the gates. And when she looks at me, it’s like… like the world stops making sense.”

Kellan’s gaze sharpens. I meet it, bracing.

“She’s not like the others,” I continue. “She’s afraid, but she hides it. Tries to act like she isn’t. But she looks at this place like it wasn’t meant to exist, like we weren’t meant to exist.”

“She’s human?”

“No,” I say, though it feels like a lie. “She has no mark, but it doesn’t matter. I feel it. In my chest. In my head. I feel her even when she isn’t near.”

Kellan studies me for a long time, then stands slowly, crossing to pour two glasses of whatever he’s been hiding from the rest of the keep. He hands one to me and doesn’t speak until I take it.

“You’re scared.”

I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Of her?”

“No,” he says, his voice quieter. “Of what she makes you want.”

I downed the drink in one go. It burns, but not enough. “She doesn’t belong here,” I say. “None of this is right. She wasn’t supposed to exist.”

“Then why is she here?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

But I do, and he sees that too.

“Is it the witch?” Kellan asks, brows pulling together. “Do you think she sent her?”

I hesitate, then shake my head. “It doesn’t feel like magic.”

Kellan raises a brow. “Then what does it feel like?”

I look at him. Really look, before I say, “It feels like fate decided to make a joke of me.”

He hums, finishing his drink and setting the glass down with a quiet clink. “Fate’s not that clever, brother. But the bond is.”

He comes to stand beside me, resting his forearms on the mantel. “Do you remember what Father said when you took the throne?” he asks.

I nod once. “He told me to kill anything I couldn’t control.”

“Exactly.”

I stare at the stone wall, that voice echoing in my skull like a ghost I can’t shake. “She can’t be controlled,” I murmur.

“No,” Kellan agrees, “but that’s not the same as being dangerous. The question is… do you want to control her?”

I don’t know. Because I might want something worse.

Kellan turns to me then, and his expression has lost the usual edge of mockery, the half-amused glint he carries into most conversations. This version of him is colder; the brother who was born to protect, not entertain.

“She’s going to break you open, Kieran,” he says. “And if you’re not ready for that, if you keep pretending she’s just another name in a ledger—then Damien was right. You’ll fall. And it won’t be her fault, it’ll be yours.”

I set the empty glass down, and stare into the fire that isn’t lit. “I’m already breaking,” I admit. “I just don’t know if I want to stop it.”

Kellan nods once, then claps me hard on the shoulder. “Then don’t.”

I glance at him, and he shrugs. “Just don’t lie to yourself when she’s the only thing you’ll beg for.”

“I’m not letting her go,” I say quietly.

“I know.”

“I don’t care if it kills me.”

Kellan nods. “I know that too.”

“And you won’t stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he says with a lazy shrug. “But I will ask you this—what happens when she asks you to?”

My throat dries, my pulse slows, and still I don’t answer because I already know the truth.

I won’t let her go.

Even if she begs, even if she breaks, even if it costs me everything I’ve built. I’ll still choose her. 

Kellan downs the rest of his drink and says nothing; there’s nothing left to say.