Chapter 3: The Burden of Crimson Blood

The wind howled through the broken temple windows, carrying flecks of snow that swirled like ghostly petals in the moonlight. Elara sat across from Kaelith, her lantern casting a soft glow on his scarred face. She had come every night since that first meeting, bringing food, water, and silence—the kind of silence that wasn’t empty but patient, as though waiting for him to speak when the weight of his chains allowed it.

Tonight, Kaelith’s gaze lingered on her longer than usual. His crimson eyes, though sharp, no longer burned with suspicion. Instead, they carried something far heavier—something that pressed against the air between them until Elara’s chest ached with it.

“Why do you keep coming back, healer?” His voice was quiet, but it carried the force of a blade unsheathed.

Elara’s hands curled around her cloak for warmth. “Because I don’t believe you are the monster they say you are.”

A shadow crossed his face. He let out a hollow laugh, one without mirth. “Then perhaps you should hear the tale. Perhaps then you’ll see why they are right.”

The temple seemed to grow colder as he shifted, the chains clinking softly like mournful bells. His eyes rose to the cracked ceiling as though he could see beyond it, past the night sky, to a past he had long buried.

“I was not born Kaelith,” he began. “I was born to a queen who never wanted me. My mother was told by the priests that her child would be a curse—a son with blood the color of night and eyes that would drink fire. She prayed to the gods to take me before I ever drew breath. But they didn’t.”

Elara’s heart tightened. She could picture it—a child entering the world not with joy but with fear and rejection.

“She looked at me once,” Kaelith continued, his voice low. “Only once. And then she ordered me hidden away. A prince in name, but never in truth. No one called me son. No one called me brother. To them, I was *it*. The cursed child.”

The bitterness in his tone was sharp, but beneath it trembled something fragile—wounded.

“They tried to cleanse me,” he said, his lips twisting with irony. “Priests carved runes into my skin. Sorcerers forced potions down my throat until I could not breathe. All to burn the curse away. But every time I bled, the blood was darker than theirs, proof enough that I was doomed.”

Elara’s lantern flickered, but her gaze never wavered from him. Her healer’s hands itched to reach for him, to press against those old scars she could see even in the dim light. But she stayed still, afraid he would retreat into silence again.

Kaelith’s eyes lowered at last, fixing on her. They were not merely crimson now—they seemed wet, as if tears had once lived there but had long since been burned dry.

“I killed, Elara.” His voice broke the fragile quiet. “Not because I wanted to… but because I was taught to. The king—my father—decided if the curse could not be erased, it could be weaponized. He sent me into battles before I could even grow into my armor. *Unleash the curse,* he said. And I did. Cities burned. Soldiers screamed. And every death proved their prophecy true—that I was the monster they always feared.”

The chains rattled as his fists clenched. For the first time, Elara noticed the faint tremor in his hands.

“Do you understand now?” His voice was sharp again, but the sharpness trembled, like a blade about to break. “There is no man left to save. Only a curse wearing flesh.”

Elara’s breath caught. She should have recoiled. She should have feared him. But instead, her heart surged with defiance. She leaned closer, the lantern’s glow catching the tears she hadn’t realized had gathered in her eyes.

“You are not the curse, Kaelith,” she whispered. “You are the boy they condemned before you had a chance to live.”

For a moment, he stared at her as if she were speaking a language the world had long forgotten. And for the first time since she had met him, his chains no longer seemed to bind a monster.

They bound a broken man.

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