The bells rang long before dawn.
A deep, measured toll, echoed through the walls of Irithiel like a slow heartbeat—steady, reverent, and impossibly distant. Each chime marked the return of the war-born daughter, the enforcer of crown law, the immortal blade of mercy and violence alike.
Velastra had come home.
Cael heard the bells from the east wing, he was no longer chained, but the sound of celebration still did not belong to him.
It never had.
He rose slowly from his bed, the sheets untouched, his body restless with the kind of energy that could never find peace. Outside his window, he could see the moonless night at its brightest.
Torches. Lanterns. Thousands, lit in honor of her return. From a distance, it looked like the sky itself had opened in celebration.
But he would not see her enter the city.
He was not allowed.
That prohibition had been set years ago.
He could hear it all now. The crowd's voice swelled like a living sea—cheers, drums, the rhythmic chant of her name braided with reverence and terror.
"Velastra. Velastra. Velastra."
He simply listened, breath caught in his throat, hand curled unconsciously over the scar at his ribs where her oathbinding had marked him.
His mother stood quietly behind him, folding linen, pretending not to hear the sound that filled every room.
She said softly, "The Vaelgrains she distributed brought strength and the border was pacified. No deaths. No riots."
"I know," Cael murmured. "I heard the servants speaking of it."
She approached slowly, hands still dusted with salve. "And you wish to see her."
He did not answer. He didn't need to.
Outside, beneath the immortal gates of Irithiel's Heart, Velastra dismounted in silence. The cheering stopped the moment her boots touched stone. The hush that followed was not fear—it was awe.
She wore black, not royal red. Her blade was sheathed, though the hilt was still stained from the campaign. Her eyes moved slowly over the crowd—not with warmth, but with recognition.
No one dared speak until she gave the nod. Then the celebration resumed with a roar. Flowers were cast at her feet. A child broke protocol and ran forward, touching her gloved hand. Velastra did not smile. But she let the child touch her.
Inside, her steward approached. "Shall I prepare the throne hall, your highness?"
Velastra shook her head once. "No ceremony. No court. I am not here for applause."
"Then what should I prepare?"
She turned slightly, gaze cutting through the palace beyond. "The east wing."
"But… Cael—"
"Exactly."
In the silence of his chamber, Cael closed his eyes. The bells were fading now. The firelight had dimmed. The crowd would disperse. She would ascend the inner halls. And still, he could not move.
But then—
The sound of boots. Not the sharp, cold cadence of guards. No. Slower. Heavier. Intentional.
She was coming.
He rose, hands trembling despite himself.
And for the first time in thirty years, he wondered not what she would take from him—
But what she might bring.
---
The door opened.
Cael didn't turn. Not right away. He knew the weight of her presence now. The air around her shifted differently—like storm pressure. He had memorized it.
But now…
He turned.
She stood in the doorway, wind-stung and pale with travel, a thin coat of dust still clinging to the hem of her dark mantle. In her hand, there's a single Celestine bloom.
He stared at it.
A blossom with the color of moonlight—pale blue edged with soft silver veins, petals curled like breath held too long. It glowed faintly in the gloom of the east wing. But… it was not quite the same as the ones in his chamber garden. Those had been cultivated—nurtured over decades of loneliness.
This one was wild. Raw. Scarred by wind. A bloom born of harsher soil.
"I saw it at the southern edge of the fire plains," Velastra said. Her voice was rough from command and distance, but lower now. Quieter. For him alone. "It bloomed in ash."
He took it gently, fingers brushing hers. His eyes lowered to the petals.
Cael looked up. Her gaze pinned him in place—unflinching, unwavering, but not cruel.
He opened his mouth to speak—but her eyes had already fallen to his lips.
There. A small wound. Blood dried, a thread-thin split where teeth had pressed again and again.
Her breath hitched. Just slightly.
She took half a step closer.
Then stopped.
He noticed it—her hesitation. A strange flicker in her expression. And when he glanced down, he saw the stiff way she held her shoulders, the faint tremble at the edges of her back.
"…You're hurt," he said.
She said nothing.
---
Flashback...
It was a day, after the fire walk trial, in the royal sanctum when Velastra stood before her father.
Snow had not yet fallen, but the marble floor beneath her boots was colder than steel. A circle of highlords and oathkeepers lined the throne chamber—robes of night and blood, eyes rimmed with ink. The Court of Chains had been convened.
"You defy the Decree," her father said. King Vorelin, Sovereign Flame, voice hollow with fury. "You would protect the one whose sword had killed thousand of our people and your brother?
Velastra did not bow. "And so do I, I killed a lot of their people." Before, her father's words were her reasons for cruelty, believing he deserves every pain, but now, reborn, she can understand deeper, somehow, she believes, she sin more.
"He survived the fire walk with his powerless body," spat one of the elder lords.
"He can still be a threat to our kingdom," shouted the other.
The lords spoke after one another. Shouting their fear of his strength. Fearing Cael's revenge.
"Have you heard them? Bind him deeper," the king snarled. "Strip him fully. Make him mortal in truth."
A hush.
Then one of the court sorcerers stepped forward, bearing the crimson blade of blood-oath forging.
"To deepen the oath is to destroy his immortality," the mage intoned. "He will wither. And die."
"He is still dangerous."
"He is broken," Velastra said. "I made him bleed and crawl for thirty years. Let that be the price."
Her father stood. The golden edge of his robe swept over the floor like liquid fire. "You presume to measure justice in your own hands, daughter?"
"I do," she whispered.
She met her father's gaze.
"And if you insist—I will..."
The silence that followed was not peace.
It was a challenge.
The king sat again.
And the blade was returned, unused.
But, he ordered his Veytashil, his Whip of Thousand-Soul.
Forged from the sinew of a slain god-beast and woven with oathsteel and soul-thread, it is not merely a weapon—it is a binding relic. Each strike from it doesn't just tear flesh, it anchors pain in the immortal souls, by passing their natural regeneration and searing the damage into every veins.
Wounds from Veytashil do not heal naturally. Instead, they return cyclinically, like echoes—burning anew each dawn unless someone can cure her. Each lash writes a curse into Velastra's bone, keeping a ledger of power and punishment.
---
Velastra blinked—dragged from memory.
Cael was still watching her. Still holding the wild Celestine bloom. He looked down, thumb grazing a scar at her wrist. Old, hidden under armor and silence.
"Your scar...its seems reopening ," he murmured.
His throat tightened. "What happened?"
She stepped closer now. No more hesitation.
"If I tell you, its for you, will you---?"
Her fingers ghosted over his mouth—but stopped.
She didn't kiss him.
Instead, she turned his hand over, placed hers in it, and whispered—
"I wanted you to love me in chains."