Bride of the Forgotten Throne

The chamber doors closed behind them with a final, heavy sound.

Kaelira didn't speak.

Neither did Dorian.

The quiet between them wasn't peaceful.

It was a battlefield.

They stood across from each other in her old chambers—ones he had preserved, untouched, as if she might walk back in one day.

And she had.

But not as the girl who left.

"You look…" he began, voice rough.

"Different?" she finished, a bitter smile curling her lips.

He looked down. "I was going to say 'alive.' But yes. That too."

She walked to the window where morning light poured in, brushing her skin in gold. Elarin's fire had left faint marks on her—trails of ember-like veins beneath her wrist, a subtle glow in her irises.

Not monstrous.

But not untouched.

Dorian's voice cracked again. "You walked into the Hollow without a word. No goodbye. No reason."

"I had a reason," she said. "You just wouldn't have accepted it."

He stepped forward.

"You're the Queen. You don't walk into death for answers."

"I didn't go to die," she said, turning to face him. "I went to remember."

The air shifted.

Something in his shoulders sagged—like a weight he hadn't realized he was still carrying.

He spoke quieter now. "And did you?"

Kaelira nodded.

Slow.

Painful.

"Yes. I remembered everything."

Dorian's jaw clenched. "So he was real."

"Elion."

She closed her eyes. "He was my husband. Once. And I was his bride."

A silence fell between them.

Not empty.

Heavy.

"You love him still?" Dorian asked.

She opened her eyes. Met his fully. "I remember loving him. That memory is mine. But I don't belong to him anymore."

She stepped closer.

Her voice dropped.

"Do you still love me?"

Dorian stared at her. Then he crossed the space between them in two long strides and kissed her—not gently, not like a question. Like a man who had broken every rule for her once, and would again.

Her breath caught. And for a moment—just one—she melted into him. Until she pulled back. Eyes shining.

"I don't know who I am when I'm with you. That terrifies me."

"And me," Dorian whispered. "But I'd rather be terrified with you than rule without you."

They stood there, in the quiet, the past between them like ash. But ash wasn't just ruin. It was the soil where things began again.