---- Chapter 23 No.23 Aria POV: "Don't go near him, Aria!" Damien commanded, his body tense, ready to spring. My father stood like a stone wall, his protective fury a palpable force. But | was calm. | looked into Kaelen's haunted eyes and saw not a murderer, but a man at the absolute end of his rope. He wouldn't hurt me. Not really. This was just the desperate act of a dying soul. "I'll go," | said, my voice steady. "Aria, no!" they both protested. "It's alright," | insisted. "But we stay where you can see us." | walked with him, a strange bubble of silence around us, away from the terrified crowd to the edge of the castle's highest turret, overlooking the entire territory. "If only | had met you first," he whispered, his voice catching on a sob. "Before all of it." Tears streamed freely down his gaunt cheeks. "| do love you, Aria. | think | always have. You were the light. You were the sun. But Lyra... she was my darkness, my history. | thought | had a duty to stay in the dark with her." ---- He choked on a self-loathing laugh. "The world's biggest fool. | didn't realize until | lost you that you were the only thing that made me want to step into the light." | sighed, a deep, weary sound. The anger was gone, replaced by a hollow sadness. "It's too late, Kaelen. Whatever | felt for you... you and Lyra killed it. Let me go. Let yourself go." "| just wanted to say goodbye," he choked out, "to tell you how much this place... you and your father... mean to me. It's the only home I've ever known." He looked at me, his eyes pleading for some small crumb of comfort. "Did you... did you ever truly love me?" | hesitated for a moment, then gave him the only truth | had left. "Yes," | said softly. "Once, you were my whole world." A genuine smile, the first | had seen in a long time, touched his lips. It was a smile of pure, heartbreaking relief. "To have been your world, even for a moment... that is an honor. I'm just sorry | woke up too late to deserve it." His gaze was intense. "In another life, let me be the one who finds you first." Then, before | could react, he closed the distance between us, wrapped an arm around my waist, and kissed me. It wasn't a passionate kiss, but one of desperate, final farewell, filled with all the regret and sorrow in the world.