Chapter 182 - 181: The Change Many Hoped For!

Hael arrived the following afternoon, road-worn and grim-faced, trailing behind him a stranger cloaked in dark traveling robes marked with unfamiliar Zhipherian sigils.

"This is Kess," Hael said, gesturing to the mage as introductions were hastily made in the main hall. "One of the few mages left in Zhipher willing to help with us out, given the war. She’s the reason we made it back as fast as we did."

Hael held Stella’s hand tight as they made their way to the living room of the Lancaster mansion. Kess was looking around observing the mansion. Sensing something, looking around, and then turning calm. She didn’t let anything build up on her face.

Caelestis called for a maid, and asked her to bring Eleanore. As they sat in the living room waiting for Eleanore, a maid came with tea for everyone. Kess, however, did not touch it. Her face carried no reaction from the moment she entered the mansion until Eleanore entered the room. A furrow appeared on her face.

As soon as Eleanore sat beside Caelesti, Kess inclined her head briefly, sharp eyes sweeping over the room before settling, with unnerving precision, directly on Eleanore. "You’re the one he’s been circling," she said, without preamble.

"You know about him?" Eleanore asked.

"I know enough." Kess withdrew a small, worn charm from within her robes, turning it over once in her palm before continuing. "He’s a dark mage. Zhipherian by origin, though he’s long since abandoned any loyalty to the crown there. He deals in things most mages consider forbidden. Soul manipulation, memory extraction, curses meant to bind rather than harm outright."

"What would an entity like that want with me?" Eleanore asked, a cold unease settling low in her stomach.

"That," Kess said, "is what worries me most. Dark magicians like him don’t circle without purpose. If he’s been tracking you across months, appearing and vanishing, watching rather than striking outright until now then I believe he’s building toward something. Waiting for the right conditions." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Whatever he wants from you, Duchess, it isn’t small."

Caelestis’s jaw had tightened progressively throughout the entire explanation, and by the time Kess finished speaking, his hand had found Eleanore’s, gripping it with quiet, unmistakable tension.

"Can you find him?" he asked.

"Possibly. It won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy. He’s clearly skilled enough to avoid detection through various means." Kess tucked the charm away again. "But if he’s set his sights on her specifically, he’ll surface again eventually. They always do, once they’re close enough to whatever they’re after."

The room fell into an uneasy silence, and Caelestis’s grip on Eleanore’s hand only tightened further, his expression carrying none of the relief from the night before—only the sharp, restless worry of a man who understood, with growing certainty, that whatever danger had been circling his wife was far from finished with her yet.

---

Caelestis found Stella in the garden that evening, sitting quietly near the fountain while Hael conferred with Kess further inside the house. She looked up as he approached, some old wariness still lingering in her expression. Understandable, given everything that had unraveled about her own history over the past months.

"I wanted to speak with you," Caelestis said, sitting carefully on the edge of the fountain beside her, "about something I should have said a long time ago."

Stella waited, saying nothing, watching him with the guarded patience of someone who’d learned not to expect much from him in the way of vulnerability.

"I’m sorry," he said finally. "For everything you went through because of me. The confinement, the poisoning, all of it happened because of my own obsession towards you. I am so sorry, Lady Stella. I tried to force you into loving someone you didn’t"

"It is good to know you understand it," Stella said quietly. "I never thought you would truly ever understand love."

"I didn’t think I would fall in love either." He turned to Hale, roaming in the gardens. "He loves you and his love is what made me wonder what love is." He exhaled, looking down at his hands. "On the other hand, his sister helped me feel it. Strange, I never thought I would truly fall for her."

Stella tilted her head slightly, waiting.

"I love Eleanore," Caelestis said, simply, without hesitation. "Genuinely. Not as an arrangement, not as something I settled into out of obligation. I know there was a time when I was an asshole, but now I am a changed man, Lady Stella. Eleanore is the woman I could burn the world for."

Something eased in Stella’s expression, a tension she’d apparently been carrying longer than he’d realized. "Iit is good to know," she said, a small, genuine smile finally surfacing. "I’ve seen how you look at her. I’m happy for you, Grand Duke. Truly. However, if it wasn’t for you I would have never known Hael. Thank you for that."

"Indeed." He smiles

She nodded, and for the first time in longer than either of them could easily recall, the air between them settled into something uncomplicated, old wounds finally allowed to close.

That evening he found Hael not long after, standing near the study window, arms crossed, watching the last light fade over the grounds.

"Beautiful the hue is, isn’ it?" Caelestis asked, coming to stand beside him. "We have been brothers since birth, Hael. I was a good child, I know it. What I don’t know is how I turned into that person. The one that insulted Eleanore, confined Lady Stella and still acted like a victim."

Hael glanced sideways at him, "What are you trying to say, Caelestis?"

"I’m trying to be someone worth your sister’s love now," Caelestis continued. "I know it’s not going to happen overnight, and I know I’ve given you plenty of reasons to doubt it’ll last. But I’m asking you to believe in me anyway. Not blindly, just enough to give me the chance to prove it."

Hael studied him for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, before finally, slowly, he extended a hand. "I’ve believed worse things about worse men," he said, the faintest hint of dry humor slipping into his tone. "I can manage this."

Caelestis huffed out something like a laugh, gripping his hand firmly. "That’s oddly generous, coming from you."

"Don’t get used to it."