Chained, p.16
Chained, page 16
His eyes widened just slightly as they landed on Caelum.
“Yes?” the man said after a moment, voice uncertain.
“One room,” Caelum said calmly. “Two beds.”
The innkeeper blinked. Once. Twice.
“Ah—of course,” he said, glancing between them with obvious curiosity. “Two beds.”
Kreyn noticed it—the surprise, the hesitation, the way the man seemed unsure how to categorize them. But Caelum didn’t react at all. No discomfort. No explanation. He simply waited.
Payment was exchanged. A key slid across the counter.
Caelum took it without comment.
As they moved away, Kreyn lowered his voice. “He looked… confused.”
Caelum didn’t slow. “It doesn’t matter.”
They reached the stairs and climbed to the upper level. Caelum stopped at the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.
The room was simple. Two beds. A small table. A window overlooking the street below. Nothing remarkable—and that was exactly the point.
Caelum stepped inside first, scanning the space out of habit before nodding once in approval.
“We’ll stay here for a day or two,” he said, turning to Kreyn. “No longer. We move again after that.”
Kreyn frowned slightly. “Why?”
“To avoid discovery,” Caelum replied. “I need to be close to you at all times.”
The words carried weight—not possessive, not threatening, but deliberate. Caelum wasn’t taking chances. Not now. Not after everything.
Kreyn nodded slowly.
He stepped fully into the room, the door closing behind them with a soft click.
For the first time, Kreyn was inside a place that wasn’t a prison.
No chains.
No darkness.
Just a room, a bed, and the quiet promise of something unknown waiting ahead.
And Caelum—standing watch, silent and vigilant—was not leaving his side.
Caelum stood beside the narrow window, his posture straight, unmoving, as if he were part of the frame itself.
Outside, the town breathed. Lantern light flickered against cobblestone streets below, merchants closing stalls, voices rising and falling in casual rhythm. Mortals passed without suspicion, without awareness of the boundaries that had been crossed to arrive here. The world went on—simple, indifferent, alive.
Caelum watched it all with sharp, disciplined focus.
Old habits.
He measured movement, noted patterns, memorized exits. Even here—especially here—he did not allow himself to relax. The mortal realm was quieter, less oppressive than the abyss, but it was not safe. Not yet. Not while questions remained unanswered.
Behind him, Kreyn lay stretched out on one of the beds.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath his weight, soft in a way his body didn’t quite trust yet. He stared up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the faint cracks in the plaster, the uneven beams running overhead. Everything felt unreal—too solid, too warm, too ordinary.
His fingers pressed into the fabric beneath him.
This wasn’t stone.
This wasn’t iron.
This wasn’t darkness.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
The first moment he had opened his eyes—blind to everything but blackness. The cold, unforgiving surface beneath his back. The ache in his body that felt older than pain itself. The chains. The silence.
The abyss.
Kreyn swallowed and blinked hard.
Here, the air smelled faintly of wood and smoke. The bed was warm. The walls did not hum with suppression. His head was clear—no pressure, no invisible punishment waiting to strike the moment he reached for a thought.
It was… peaceful.
Too peaceful.
He turned his head slowly and looked at Caelum.
The angel stood outlined by the window’s pale glow, golden hair catching the light even in stillness. His presence filled the room without effort—calm, controlled, distant. Kreyn studied him quietly, trying to understand something he had failed to grasp since the moment they met.
This man.
The one who had nearly killed him.
The one who had freed him.
The one who demanded answers yet refused to give any.
Kreyn still didn’t understand why Caelum needed the truth so badly. Why remembering mattered so much to him. Why he insisted on staying close, watching, waiting. Why he kept information locked away like a guarded vault.
And yet—
Despite the secrecy.
Despite the silence.
Despite the uncertainty.
Kreyn trusted him.
Completely.
The realization unsettled him.
He broke the silence before he could overthink it.
“Are you staying with me,” Kreyn asked quietly, voice steady but edged with vulnerability, “because I’m still a prisoner in your eyes?”
The words hung in the air, fragile and exposed.
Caelum turned his head slightly at the sound of Kreyn’s voice. Their eyes met briefly—long enough for something unspoken to pass between them.
But Caelum did not answer.
Instead, his thoughts churned beneath his composed exterior.
Are you guilty?
He didn’t know.
And that uncertainty was exactly why he couldn’t allow Kreyn out of his sight—not yet. If Kreyn truly was what Heaven and Hell feared, letting him roam freely would be unforgivable. If he wasn’t…
Then every moment Kreyn had spent chained was a crime in itself.
But Caelum could not say any of that.
Not yet.
So he chose a safer response.
“Rest,” Caelum said at last, his tone even, controlled. “I’ll get us some food.”
He turned away from the window and headed for the door without waiting for a reply.
The door closed softly behind him.
Kreyn stared at the ceiling again, the room suddenly quieter without Caelum’s presence. He lowered his gaze and let out a deep, slow sigh—one filled with confusion, gratitude, frustration, and something dangerously close to longing.
He didn’t know what he was anymore.
He didn’t know what he had done.
He didn’t know what the truth would cost.
But for now, he was free.
And for reasons he couldn’t explain, the one person holding all the answers was also the one he trusted the most—even while being kept in the dark.
Kreyn closed his eyes, letting the unfamiliar softness of the bed cradle him, and waited.
For food.
For answers.
For whatever came next.
Caelum returned not long after, the door opening with a quiet creak before closing again behind him.
The scent of food reached Kreyn before the sight of it did—warm bread, something roasted, a faint hint of spice. It stirred something unfamiliar in him, not hunger exactly, but curiosity. A reminder that this world obeyed different rules.
“Eat,” Caelum said simply, setting the tray down on the small wooden table. “You should get used to it.”
Kreyn pushed himself off the bed and walked over, pulling out a chair and sitting down. He stared at the food for a moment, then glanced up—
And paused.
Caelum had already moved back to the window.
The same position as before. Standing. Watching. Guarding.
Kreyn’s brows furrowed.
“Aren’t you eating?” he asked.
“No,” Caelum replied without turning.
Kreyn blinked. “You’re not hungry?”
“No.”
That was it. No explanation. No elaboration.
Kreyn huffed softly and leaned back in his chair, studying Caelum’s reflection in the window. “Come on,” he said. “At least sit with me.”
Silence.
Caelum didn’t move.
Kreyn’s patience—already stretched thin by a lifetime of unanswered questions—finally snapped just a little. He set his hands flat on the table and looked directly at Caelum.
“If you’re going to stay quiet every time I ask something,” Kreyn said, voice calm but edged, “then at least eat with me.”
Caelum still didn’t turn.
Kreyn swallowed, then added quietly, “Or… are you disgusted sitting beside me?”
That did it.
Caelum turned.
His eyes met Kreyn’s—sharp at first, then something else flickered beneath the surface. Surprise, perhaps. Or the faintest trace of regret.
He exhaled slowly.
Then he walked to the table.
He pulled out the chair opposite Kreyn and sat down without another word, taking some of the food and eating with restrained, practiced movements. Not because he needed it—but because Kreyn had asked.
Kreyn watched him for a second, then looked back at his own meal.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
They ate in silence for a while. Not uncomfortable—just unspoken. The kind of quiet that sat between two people who had survived too much together to waste words casually.
Eventually, Kreyn broke it again.
“So,” he said, chewing slowly. “What happens after this?”
Caelum looked up. “You want to go out?”
Kreyn hesitated. “Can I?”
“Yes,” Caelum said immediately. “Of course.”
Relief flickered across Kreyn’s face—brief, genuine. “Really?”
“I’ll follow you,” Caelum added, “from a distance.”
Kreyn frowned. “Why not walk with me?”
Caelum paused, then set his food aside. “Because it’s better if we don’t always move together.”
Kreyn tilted his head. “But people already saw us walking together. We checked in together. We’re in the same room. What difference does it make now?”
Caelum’s gaze hardened—not toward Kreyn, but toward something far beyond the walls of the inn.
“I don’t care about them,” he said quietly. “I don’t care about mortals noticing us.”
Kreyn stilled.
“I care about the ones who might,” Caelum continued. “If one of us is seen… then the other remains free. Able to move. Able to think. Able to act.”
Kreyn’s lips parted.
No sound came out.
The implication settled heavily between them.
Insurance.
Contingency.
Sacrifice.
“If they take one of us,” Caelum said calmly, “then the other still has a chance to save the one who has been taken.”
Kreyn stared at him.
Not at the angel.
At the idea.
At the quiet certainty with which Caelum had already accepted that risk.
For a long moment, he couldn’t speak.
Then he looked down at the table, fingers curling slightly against the wood.
“…Okay,” Kreyn finally said, voice barely above a whisper.
Not because he fully understood.
But because, once again, Caelum had thought several steps ahead—about survival, not comfort.
And for the first time, Kreyn realized something unsettling and profound:
Caelum wasn’t just protecting him.
He was already prepared to lose him—if it meant preserving the truth.
Chapter 18. The Mortal Realm
As Kreyn stepped outside, the cool air brushing against his skin, his thoughts tangled quietly within him.
Is that really the reason? he wondered.
Is the distance truly about saving the other if one of them is captured…
—or is it also about something else?
If he were taken, would Caelum’s name remain untarnished? Would the angel still stand untouched by judgment, still unimplicated in the escape of a prisoner who should never have left the abyss alive?
The thought struck sharply—but Kreyn pushed it aside.
He refused to let it poison what had already been done.
True or not, motive or not, the facts remained immovable: Caelum had saved him. Not halfway. Not reluctantly. Completely. He had descended into the abyss, defied Heaven’s silence, endured pain meant to tear him apart, and performed a forbidden ritual that had nearly taken his life.
That wasn’t speculation.
That was sacrifice.
Kreyn remembered Caelum collapsing to his knees. Remembered the scream that had torn from his throat. Remembered holding his unconscious body in the dark, waiting, terrified, refusing to leave even when he himself was free.
No matter how Caelum justified it—to himself or anyone else—that mattered.
Caelum had said he needed answers.
Which meant Kreyn wasn’t just a burden. He was a question. A living one. A key to something buried so deeply that Heaven and Hell had conspired to erase it.
And Kreyn wanted those answers too.
Even if Caelum’s reason for staying was tied to that truth—
even if duty, suspicion, or necessity still guided him—
It didn’t erase what he had already done.
A stranger.
A prisoner.
The chained one.
And yet Caelum had chosen him.
That was enough.
They finished eating in a quiet understanding, plates pushed aside, words unnecessary. When they left the inn, Caelum gestured subtly for Kreyn to go first.
Kreyn hesitated only a moment before stepping out into the street.
He walked ahead, as instructed.
A few meters.
Five.
Ten.
Only then did Caelum follow, his presence felt even without proximity.
Kreyn didn’t look back.
Instead, he let himself see.
The town had fully awakened now. Stalls lined the streets, merchants calling out with practiced warmth, the scent of bread, spices, and unfamiliar goods drifting through the air. Cloth fluttered from wooden frames. Laughter broke out near a corner where children chased one another. Coins clinked. Voices overlapped.
Life.
Messy. Loud. Ordinary.
Kreyn slowed, eyes widening as he took it all in. He wandered from stall to stall, fingers brushing rough fabrics, pausing to watch a blacksmith work, listening to conversations that meant nothing and everything all at once.
No chains tugged him back.
No pain punished his curiosity.
No darkness swallowed his steps.
Behind him—always behind him—Caelum watched.
From a distance.
He moved like a shadow among mortals, deliberate, alert, eyes never still. His gaze never left Kreyn for long, tracking his movements with quiet vigilance. To anyone else, he was just another traveller.
To Kreyn, he was an anchor he didn’t realize he’d needed.
The town grew livelier by the minute, people gathering, trading, living—unaware that two beings from realms beyond their understanding had just stepped into their world.
For the first time since he could remember, Kreyn wasn’t surviving.
He was living.
And somewhere behind him, an angel walked quietly, carrying both suspicion and protection in equal measure, unaware that the distance he insisted upon did nothing to sever the bond already forming between them.
Kreyn walked slowly, deliberately, as though afraid that if he moved too fast the moment might shatter.
Every breath he drew felt like a gift.
The air filled his lungs without resistance—warm, clean, alive. It carried layers of scent he had never known he was missing: baked bread, roasted meat, burning oil, fresh cloth, damp earth, sweat, smoke, sweetness, bitterness. Each inhale grounded him further in a world that did not punish him for existing.
Sunlight brushed against his skin, gentle but real.
He lifted one hand instinctively, letting the warmth soak into his palm. No chains tugged it back. No metal bit into his wrist. No invisible force crushed his chest for daring to move freely.
I’m really out, he thought.
For the first time, the memory of the abyss did not claw at him—it receded.
Gone was the suffocating darkness that swallowed everything. Gone was the cold, damp stone beneath his body, the walls that felt endless and unyielding. Gone was the constant echo of chains—metal scraping against metal—the only sound that ever answered his voice.
Here, sound surrounded him from all directions.
People talking. Laughing. Arguing. A musician strumming a lively tune on the corner, strings vibrating with warmth. Another playing a flute nearby, the melody light and playful. Vendors shouting cheerfully, advertising their wares with practiced enthusiasm. Food sizzling over open fires, fat crackling, steam rising into the air.
It was chaos.
Beautiful chaos.
Kreyn smiled without realizing it.
He didn’t mind that Caelum wasn’t walking beside him. He didn’t even mind that the angel lingered somewhere behind, out of sight but never truly gone. Whether Caelum followed or not didn’t change what this moment was.
This was his.
Freedom tasted sweeter because it was quiet, unguarded, unclaimed.
His body felt… normal.
No aching bones.
No trembling hands.
No wounds biting into his wrists and ankles.
He flexed his fingers again just to be sure.
Nothing hurt.
He kept walking, letting the crowd carry him forward until a swell of voices drew his attention. A group of singers stood in a small circle, harmonizing effortlessly. Their voices rose together—clear, layered, powerful—filling the street with something almost sacred.
Kreyn stopped.
He listened.
The sound washed over him, and for a moment his chest tightened—not with pain, but with something dangerously close to emotion. When the song ended, applause rippled through the crowd.
Kreyn clapped too.
Harder than he meant to.
He laughed softly at himself, surprised by how natural it felt—how easy it was to respond without fear. Their voices lingered in his ears, light and pure, and he thought absently that if angels sang, it might sound something like this.
He moved on, still smiling.
As he walked, he reached into his pocket and checked the coins Caelum had given him earlier. Still plenty. More than enough. He closed his hand around them, warmth spreading through his palm.
