Chapter 504 I Let You Believe

Chapter 504 I Let You Believe
(Caelum Ashborne) 

Cael's arms loosened. Slowly. Reluctantly. He lowered Adelaide back onto her feet. 
She looked at him in confusion, searching his face as though she couldn't understand why the world had suddenly shifted beneath them. 
"Cael?" 
He rested his forehead against hers one last time, forcing himself to breathe. 
"We have to talk first." 
She smiled sadly. 
"No." 
"Adelaide..." 
"No." 
She reached for him again before he could retreat, her hands finding the fastening at the front of his shirt instead of his face this time. One clasp slipped free beneath her fingers almost absently as she leaned in to press another lingering kiss against the hollow beneath his collarbone. 
"I don't want another conversation." 
Another fastening yielded. 
"I don't want another prophecy." 
Her lips brushed lightly across his chest as she spoke, each word carrying more exhaustion than desire. 
"I don't want another person telling me who I'm supposed to become." 
The ribbons at her shoulders, loosened during their embrace, slipped a little further. She either didn't notice or just didn't care. Her attention never left him. 
"I've spent all day becoming someone else." 
She looked up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. 
"For five minutes..." Another gentle kiss. "...can I just be your Adelaide?" 
Cael closed his eyes. Every instinct screamed at him to take those five minutes. To steal them. To let her believe, if only a little longer, that nothing stood between them except tomorrow. 
His hands trembled as they settled over hers. He couldn't. If he waited another minute... He would wait another hour. And if he waited another hour... He would never tell her. 
He caught her wrists gently. Not to restrain her. To stop himself. 
"Adelaide..." His voice broke beneath the weight of the words waiting to be spoken. 
"Please, Cael." 
His arms tightened around her one final time, his eyes closing as he allowed himself a single, selfish heartbeat of pretending there was still a future where none of it mattered. Then reality returned. With it came the unbearable certainty that every second he delayed only made what he was about to do crueller. 
"You have to listen to me." 
He shook her wrists, whether to regain her attention or to force his own to remain on what needed to be done. It was enough that she finally looked up at him in surprise. 
"We have to stop." 
She tried to smile again. 
"It can wait." 
"No. It really can't." 
She took another small step towards him, pressing herself against his body. 
When he didn't move, she reached for him again. 
He held onto her wrists. Still gently. Still pleading. 
"Please..." 
She searched his face, refusing to believe the fear she suddenly saw there. 
"Cael..." 
His composure finally shattered. 
"Adelaide!" The word cracked through the chamber. 
She froze. The silence that followed was louder than the shout itself. Even the shadows seemed to stop moving. 
Her eyes widened. He had never shouted at her before. Never. 
His breathing came hard as he stared at her, horror immediately replacing the anger in his own expression. 
"I'm..." He closed his eyes. "...I'm sorry." 
When he opened them again, there was nothing left except grief. 
"You have to listen to me." 
She didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even wipe away the tears now slipping silently down her cheeks. 
He swallowed. Every word that came next would destroy the only good thing he had ever known. 
"I'm not..." His voice almost failed him. "...who you think I am." 
He looked at her for so long that she eventually reached up, almost instinctively, to wipe away the tears gathering beneath his eyes. 
The gesture undid him. Her fingertips were as gentle as they had always been, brushing the moisture from his cheek as though his pain mattered just as much as her own. She smiled sadly, still believing she could somehow comfort whatever hurt he refused to name. 
"You're frightening me," she whispered. 
His eyes closed. 
"I know." 
His voice barely resembled his own anymore. 
"I know." 
He covered the hand resting against his face, holding it there for one last selfish moment before lowering it slowly between them. 
"I have spent every day since I met you telling myself that I would tell you tomorrow." 
The words came slowly. Not because he was choosing them. Because each one hurt. 
"Tomorrow, when we'd crossed the forest." 
"Tomorrow, when we'd escaped the Citadel." 
"Tomorrow, after the battle." 
"Tomorrow, once I knew you were safe." 
A hollow laugh escaped him. 
"There was always another tomorrow." 
His thumb drifted unconsciously across the back of her hand. 
"And every time I looked at you..." His voice broke. "...I chose one more lie." 
Adelaide frowned. "I don't understand." 
"I know." 
Another painful smile touched his face. 
"Gods..." He shook his head. "I don't even know where to begin anymore." 
She stepped closer again. "Then begin anywhere." 
The kindness in those four words almost destroyed him. He stared at her. Really stared. Trying to memorise the way she looked at him now. Because in another minute... She never would again. 
"When you met me..." His voice barely rose above a whisper. "You believed I was simply another forgotten Emberborn trapped inside the Citadel." 
She nodded slowly, still waiting for him to arrive at whatever impossible truth had hollowed him out. 
"You believed the first time we truly met... was when I brought you those clothes after Apollo ordered you be left exposed." 
Another nod. 
"You believed I came because I couldn't bear seeing you treated that way." 
Her brow furrowed slightly. 
"I did." 
His eyes closed. 
"You believed I risked Apollo's wrath to bring you water after he left you hanging on the cross." 
The memory flashed through both of them at once. Her cracked lips. His trembling hands. The cup pressed carefully against her mouth while every instinct screamed at him to hurry before Apollo returned. 
"You believed I comforted you because I couldn't stand watching him hurt you." 
His voice had begun to crack beneath the weight of every remembered kindness. 
"You believed I held you after he..." He swallowed hard, unable to force the rest of the sentence past the grief tightening around his throat. "...because I wanted nothing more than to take your pain away." 
Adelaide stared at him. He could see the memories returning behind her eyes exactly as they returned behind his. The training pits. The ribbon of gold dancing across his palm. Her laughter when her own flame had finally answered. 
"You believed teaching you to summon your fire was something we discovered together." 
Another pause. 
"You believed showing you my Emberflame was trust." 
His breathing had become uneven now. 
"You believed you freed me from Apollo’s command." 
His eyes finally met hers again. 
"You believed our first kiss happened because neither of us could keep pretending anymore." 
A tear escaped despite every effort to stop it. 
"You believed every step we took afterwards..." His voice failed for a moment before he forced it back. "...every conversation... every smile... every promise... it happened because we kept choosing one another." 
Adelaide's lips parted. 
"Cael..." 
"I let you believe all of it."