Chapter 505 He Who Was Sent

Chapter 505 He Who Was Sent
(Caelum Ashborne) 

"I let you believe all of it." Cael didn't look away. He refused to.
"You trusted me enough to follow me into the Obsidian Wilds." 
His chest tightened.
"You trusted me enough to stand beside me in battle." 
His breathing shook. 
"You trusted me enough to place your life in my hands." 
He almost laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because there was nothing left to do except watch himself destroy the greatest thing he had ever been given. 
"And every time..." he whispered, "...every single time you looked at me with that trust..." 
Another tear slipped free. "...I hated myself a little more." 
Silence swallowed the chamber. Adelaide didn't interrupt. She couldn't. 
Cael drew one final, ragged breath. 
"None of it was an accident." 
The words seemed to echo long after he had spoken them. 
"When I first walked into your life..." His throat tightened so violently it hurt to speak. "...I already knew exactly who you were." 
He shook his head slowly. 
"I was sent to find you." 
His eyes never left hers. 
"I was sent to earn your trust." 
Another heartbeat. 
"I was sent..." 
His voice broke completely. 
"...to bring you home." 
The final word almost destroyed him. 
"To the Emberborn." 
Adelaide stared at him. Nothing in her face resembled anger. Not yet. Only confusion so complete it seemed to have stolen the very ground from beneath her feet. 
"I..." Her voice barely found the strength to exist. "I don't understand." 
He wished she did. He wished she would shout. Strike him. Curse his name. Anything but look at him with those same trusting eyes while trying so desperately to make sense of words that refused to fit together. 
"You said..." she whispered, searching his face for the answer she still believed she would find there. "You said none of it was an accident." 
"It wasn't." 
"You said you were sent to find me." 
"I was." 
"But..." Her breathing had become uneven. "That doesn't make sense." 
"No." A hollow smile touched his mouth before disappearing just as quickly. "I suppose it doesn't." 
He drew a slow breath, feeling each word tear something loose inside him before it ever reached his lips. 
"My name..." 
He stopped. Not because he had forgotten it. Because he knew what would happen the moment he spoke it aloud. The male she loved would begin to disappear. 
"...isn't Cael Asher." 
Adelaide frowned. "What?" 
"My name..." His eyes never left hers. "...is Caelum Ashborne." 
Silence. 
She repeated it quietly, almost experimentally. 
"...Ashborne." 
He nodded once. 
"I am the lost Emberborn prince." 
Her brow knitted together. 
"No..." 
The denial came instinctively, not because she doubted him, but because the pieces simply refused to fit. 
"No." 
"My father..." 
His voice had grown frighteningly calm now, as though he had already accepted whatever came next. 
"...is Arkael." 
The colour drained slowly from her face. 
"No." 
"My grandfather..." Another impossible breath. "...was Vaelor." 
The name seemed to echo through the chamber. 
"The male that Apollo told you about. The demon who betrayed him." 
She stared, unblinking. He watched every memory he'd shared with her over the past weeks begin rearranging themselves behind her eyes. Apollo's stories. Vaelor. The Emberborn prince. The resemblance she'd never thought to question. The way Arkael had looked at him. The way Tomathican had treated him. The way the palace guards had bowed without surprise. Everything. 
"No..." she whispered again, though this time the word sounded less like denial and more like prayer. 
"I was sent to the Citadel centuries before you arrived." 
His voice remained painfully steady. 
"My father knew the prophecy would eventually lead you there." 
He swallowed. 
"So he sent me… To wait for you." 
The words tasted like ash. 
"To earn Apollo's trust. To remain at his side until the Queen appeared." 
He laughed once. There was no humour in it. 
"Nine hundred years." His eyes closed briefly. "I waited nine hundred years for you." 
Adelaide took an unconscious step backwards. He let her. He deserved the distance. 
"When you arrived..." He looked at her again. "...my orders were simple." 
His chest tightened so violently he wondered how it still beat. 
"Get close to you. Earn your trust. Bring you back to the Emberborn." 
Each sentence fell more quietly than the last. 
"My father planned every part of it." 
He lowered his eyes. 
"And I obeyed." 
The silence stretched between them until it became almost unbearable. Then he spoke the only truth that still mattered. 
"The one thing my father never planned..." His voice broke. "...was you." 
He laughed again, softer this time. 
"I was supposed to watch you. I was supposed to guide you. I was supposed to bring you here." 
His eyes found hers once more. 
"I was never supposed to love you." 
The words came apart as he spoke them. 
"But I did." He took one slow step towards her before forcing himself to stop. "I do." 
There was no defence left in him. No excuse. No attempt to justify the lies. Only truth. 
"I have loved you for far longer than I ever should have." 
A tear escaped despite every effort to stop it. 
"And if I could undo the moment my father sent me to the Citadel..." His voice fell almost to a whisper. "...I would." 
Not because he regretted loving her. 
Because loving her had become the one thing powerful enough to make him betray everything else.