✧ Chapter Fifteen ✧
Where It Hurts the Most
from Have You Someone to Protect?
By ©Amer
Thud!
The sound was soft—soft enough to be missed in the music of the ballroom beyond the hedges. But Caelum had heard it.
His hand tightened around the cold railing, the iron biting into his palm. Moonlight caught the line of his jaw, sharpening the stillness that cloaked him. He had seen her—Lhady—press her trembling hands to Silas's face. He couldn't hear her words, but the sound of her breaking reached him anyway. A tenderness—fractured, held back by the last threads of poise.
She hadn't returned to the celebration right away.
No, she had walked in the opposite direction, away from Silas, away from the light. Her steps were uneven.
And then—her knees folded beneath her. Her body sank into the earth like something let go.
Caelum did not move.
He'd promised himself she could have that moment—whatever it was. And so, he let her be alone. Let her cry quietly, the way people did when they didn't want anyone to witness the shattering. Her lips moved, quivered with soundless grief. He saw her shoulders jerk once. Then again. But not a sound escaped.
She composed herself after a time. Barely. Then a voice, low and strange, reached her alone.
A whisper from no one. Or perhaps someone only she could hear.
Still, Caelum waited. Even when his entire body tensed at the weight of something unseen passing through the air.
Behind the hedges, on a separate path, Silas lowered himself onto the bench where Lhady had sat only moments earlier. His fingers grazed something cool on the ground—a mask of violet satin, delicate but incomplete. The golden gem was missing. She had left it behind.
He stared at it for a long time. As if it were a reason. Or an excuse.
Then, quietly, he stood and followed the path she had taken.
Just before the music faded behind him, he heard it too:
Thud.
His pace quickened.
There—Lhady collapsed on the garden path, her form crumpled like her will had drained from her bones. His heart leapt painfully.
"Lhady!"
Caelum had already moved from the shadows, fast and soundless, like he had known the moment would come.
By the time Silas reached her, Caelum was only a few steps behind.
Silas caught her, cradling her before she could fully hit the ground. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her breath—shallow, faint.
"I didn't think…" Silas murmured. "I didn't think she'd break."
Caelum stopped, his eyes fixed on her pale face, then at the one holding her.
"She—" Silas's voice cracked. "She didn't look back."
"She didn't have to," Caelum said quietly. "You'd already hurt her."
Silas flinched—but then the air shifted.
A warning, sharp and quiet, stirred beneath Silas's voice as he lifted his gaze to Caelum.
"And you think you won't?" he said, voice low but steady. "You think she's safe in your hands? I looked into you—from afar, yes, but thoroughly. I told them to find out who you are for a reason. Just make sure your silence doesn't end up wounding her deeper than my mistakes ever did."
Caelum's eyes darkened. "I didn't have the luxury of leaving."
The weight of those words fell like stone between them.
Neither moved. Only the soft night wind stirred her hair, brushing against Silas's collar and catching in Caelum's sleeves.
Then, slowly, Silas lowered his arms.
"Then let me do one thing right," he said hoarsely. "Take her."
He relinquished her to Caelum without resistance, as if surrendering more than just the girl—perhaps the last hope of mending what he had broken.
Caelum gathered her with the care of someone carrying not just weight, but memory. He looked once at Silas. Nothing more.
Then he turned—and walked back through the garden, toward the place she'd once tried to run from.
Silas swallowed hard.
She didn't have to. You'd already hurt her.
The words lingered longer than they should've, heavier than the night air that wrapped around them.
For a second, Silas couldn't breathe—not because of Caelum's voice, calm and low like a blade laid flat—but because it was true.
She hadn't looked back.
Not once. Not even to flinch, or hesitate. And that was what shattered him more than her tears or the way her hand trembled when she spoke about the wild ringflower.
It was how certain she'd seemed when she let him go.
He had once promised himself he'd never be the reason she cried again.
Yet there she was, broken in the garden, and he hadn't even noticed the moment it happened.
He'd been so consumed by what he couldn't say, what he was meant to do, that he hadn't seen the cost until it lay bare between them.
Silas's gaze lowered to her in his arms. She felt too still, too quiet. Like she had nothing left to fight for, not even in sleep.
He wasn't sure what part of her he'd lost—her trust, her love, her warmth—but whatever it was, it felt irreversible now.
And Caelum had seen it all.
Silas didn't argue. He simply nodded, breath shallow. "Then let me do one thing right."
His fingers hovered, reluctant, before he let her go.
Lhady's POV
Thud.
That sound again—soft, distant, like memory brushing against the edge of waking.
Lhady blinked slowly, her lashes heavy with dampness.
The first thing she noticed was the weight of warmth beneath her cheek. The quiet thrum of a heartbeat. The scent of familiar linen—faint cedar, a trace of leather. Her fingers twitched against fabric.
Caelum.
Her head rested against his arm, his coat now draped around her shoulders like a quiet shelter.
She felt his stillness, the way his body remained perfectly poised yet utterly alert, as if he were holding his breath with her.
She stirred slightly. "Why…?" Her voice cracked. "Did I—faint?"
Caelum's gaze shifted downward, calm and unreadable. "Not quite," he said gently. "You fell. You didn't seem aware of it."
Lhady's brow furrowed. "I don't… I remember walking. I remember…"
Her voice trailed off as a shiver ran through her spine. She didn't remember collapsing—but she did remember the whisper.
That voice, barely there, speaking through shadow and air. A feeling more than a sound.
But she kept it to herself.
She slowly sat up, still swaddled in his coat. "Don't take me to the ballroom," she murmured. "Not like this."
Caelum nodded once, already understanding.
"Just… somewhere with air. The porch maybe. Not too far. Alen's night shouldn't be disrupted."
She didn't miss the flicker of expression in his eyes—something between pride and sorrow.
Without a word, Caelum stood, scooping her up again without ceremony, and carried her through the corridor lit by soft lanterns until they reached the far balcony that faced the garden.
The air was cool against her face. The noise of celebration was distant now, as if it belonged to another world.
Caelum set her down gently onto one of the cushioned benches.
He stood nearby, not pressing her with questions, only watching her with a quiet attentiveness that never felt intrusive.
She gathered herself slowly.
The moonlight played on the pale stone, and beyond the railing, fireflies stirred among the hedges.
Lhady let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"I didn't want him to see," she finally said.
Caelum didn't ask who. He didn't need to.
"I was alright," she went on. "I thought I was. But I think I lied to myself harder than I did to anyone else tonight."
She glanced at Caelum, as if expecting judgment. But his expression was still, patient. He said nothing.
She laughed weakly. "You're not going to scold me?"
"Why would I?" His voice was low, unwavering. "You held yourself together until you didn't have to anymore."
That struck something deep.
Lhady turned her gaze outward, across the garden that stretched like a silver quilt beneath the moon.
"She's not a little girl anymore," she said softly. "It really is her rebirth."
Caelum didn't speak at first.
When he did, his voice held something weightier than usual. "Rebirth… sometimes it looks like growing. Other times it looks like letting go."
Lhady tilted her head. "And sometimes… like finally choosing for yourself."
Just then, a burst of light cracked the sky—bright gold and fuchsia scattering against the dark.
Fireworks.
She gasped quietly as another firework followed, then another—slow blooms of color unfolding above the trees.
Straightening, she leaned gently against the railing for balance.
Caelum stepped beside her, his presence calm and steady. From his coat pocket, he withdrew something small. When he opened his hand, there it was—a golden gem, the one that had once adorned the side of her mask. It must've come loose during her hurried escape.
Without a word, he offered it to her.
Lhady took it gently, her fingers brushing his for only a breath of a second.
They said nothing.
He didn't move away, simply remained close—not touching, only there, as if guarding the quiet between them.
They watched the sky, face turned up to the light, the sounds of awe rising faintly from the guests below.
Lhady's expression softened, the heaviness of the night easing beneath the painted stars above them.
A quiet part of her wished the night could pause here—on this hush, this safety, this shared sky.
Somewhere below, on a garden path darkened by ivy and silence, Silas stood alone.
One hand curled around the violet mask, now missing its gem.
He looked up at the fireworks too, his face unreadable in the flickering light.
His lips moved, barely audible.
"Happy rebirth, Lady Alen," he said into the wind.
And from the balcony, as if echoing him across the garden, Lhady's voice followed, soft but sure:
"To Lady Alen… may her heart never be small enough to forget who she's become."
"May we all be brave enough to follow."
The sky cracked with one final blossom of light.
The night, at last, breathed quiet.