She Chose the Wrong Hero

The air in the capital always tasted like gold and ash.

Elira stood at the edge of the palace gardens, hands hidden in her sleeves, watching the sun dip behind the marble towers that once glittered like promises. From here, the Court of Light looked untouched. Beautiful. Pure. Deceptive.

Beneath its polished marble floors, betrayal brewed.

It always had.

She inhaled slowly. Lavender and smoke. She had walked these paths before—stepped through these gilded archways, smiled at these guards, bowed to these nobles. And she had been blind.

This time, she wouldn't be.

"Elira?" a voice called from behind her. She turned, expecting a shadow.

Instead, it was Lady Serin, her old mentor at the Order of Healing. Bright robes. Soft eyes. The woman who had once defended her against the High Cleric, only to burn with the rest of them.

"Elira Vane, they told me you were in the capital again. I almost couldn't believe it." Serin's voice was warm, but her gaze studied her like a puzzle piece returned to the wrong box.

Elira forced a smile. "It's good to see you, Lady Serin."

"You vanished after the border war. And now you're back, just as the Summoning Trials begin. Convenient timing." A pause. "You were always lucky like that."

Elira bowed her head. "I suppose I was."

Serin didn't press further, but her tone hardened. "Kael Ardyn has returned, you know. He arrived yesterday from the northern front. He asked for you."

Elira's fingers twitched. She hid them in her robes.

So soon?

So soon, and the boy who would become a god-killer was already looking for her.

"I see," she said quietly.

"You should go to him," Serin said, with a strange gentleness. "He's not the same as he was. None of us are."

But that's the problem, isn't it? Elira thought. I remember exactly what he becomes.

Later that evening, Elira stood at the great doors of the Hall of Ascension. The moonlight hit them like silver fire. Two guards flanked either side, their hands on hilts, though they recognized her.

"Lady Elira," one said. "He's waiting inside."

Of course he was.

She stepped through.

The hall was empty except for the boy at the center—Kael Ardyn, golden-haired and devastatingly poised, his back to her as he faced the stained glass wall of saints and legends.

He didn't turn.

"Elira," he said, voice like memory, voice like ruin. "You came."

"I did."

He turned then, and the world tried to lie to her.

Because Kael still looked like the boy she had once chosen. Brilliant. Heroic. Radiant. The light caught his eyes and turned them to polished amber. No sign yet of the man he would become—the monster, the tyrant, the slayer of kings.

Only a boy who remembered her kindness, and had not yet drowned in power.

"I heard you were in the city," he said, stepping closer. "I thought… after all this time… you would have forgotten me."

"I forget nothing, Kael," she said softly.

He smiled, not catching the weight of her words.

"I've missed you," he said. "There are things I want to say. Things I should've said before—"

A whisper flickered through her mind.

Do not fall again.

She stiffened. Her heart ached—but not for him.

Not anymore.

"I'm not who I was," she said.

Kael blinked. "That's alright," he said. "Neither am I."

He reached for her hand.

And this time, she did not take it.