In the quiet stillness of their shared cottage, Caelum reached out for Seraphine’s hand. She gave it to him, warm and still, but her eyes were elsewhere—somewhere far beyond the walls, lost in a place he couldn’t follow.

“You’re quiet again,” he said gently.

She gave him a soft smile. “I’ve always been.”

“Not like this.”

Seraphine didn’t reply. She shifted, placing her head on his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat. It grounded her, reminded her she was here, now, with him. But her silence grew heavier with each passing day. Her lips still kissed him. Her hands still found his at night. But her words became fewer, her eyes haunted, as if they were trying to read some invisible map that even she couldn’t see.

They were in love. Of that, there was no doubt.

Caelum made her tea with rose petals and cinnamon. He memorized the lines of her favorite poetry and whispered them to her under the stars. She traced spells along his spine as he slept, protective runes and old blessings she didn’t even remember learning.

But love, no matter how gentle, could not pull truth from lips unwilling to speak it.

One night, after the rain, they lay beneath a willow tree near the lake. The sky shimmered with stars. Caelum turned to her, brushing back a strand of hair.

“Seraphine,” he said softly, “I love you. You know that. But I need to ask.”

She tensed. He noticed.

“Why did you lose your path?”

Her breath caught.

He searched her face. “You always speak of it like a curse. Like some spell the forest put on you. But I’ve seen the way you look at forks in the road. You don’t wait for the path to twist. You walk toward the chaos.”

She pulled her hand back.

He sat up, his voice still soft. “Was it fear? Was it running? I don’t want to fix you, Seraphine. I just want to understand you.”

She closed her eyes.

The silence stretched.

And Caelum, as always, waited.

But this time, no answer came.

Seraphine wanted to speak. She wanted to explain the gnawing thing inside her, the one that whispered: You’re not enough. The voice that told her that if someone truly knew her darkness, they would leave. That maybe she had wandered not because she was cursed—but because she was afraid to be truly seen.

But words were dangerous.

Words tied you down. They made things real.

And so, she said nothing.

Not because she didn’t love him.

But because she did.

Caelum didn’t press her again. He still held her. Still looked at her like she was made of wonder. But the silence hung between them now, like a veil.

He tried to fill it with laughter, stories, warmth. And Seraphine responded with kisses, with spells that glowed gold when he touched her skin. Their love was still blooming—like a rose that had chosen to grow in winter. Fragile, determined. Real.

But roses, even in love, have thorns.

That winter, the dreams returned.

Seraphine stood in a vast field of mirrors. Each one showed a different version of herself. A girl too trusting. A woman too guarded. A witch too wise. A wanderer too lost.

And one mirror remained empty.

She stepped in front of it.

“Who are you now?” a voice asked.

She saw Caelum in the distance, arms outstretched, waiting.

But she couldn’t move. She didn’t know which reflection he loved. The strong one? The quiet one? The liar?

Or did he love the mask she wore?

The next morning, she woke with tears on her cheeks and frost on her fingers. Caelum pulled her close. She shivered in his arms, but not from cold.

“I can’t stay silent forever,” she whispered against his chest.

He stroked her hair. “I know.”

“I’m just afraid that if I speak, the path will shift again. And I’ll lose everything.”

He looked down at her, eyes steady. “Then let’s lose it together.”

She looked up at him. “Why?”

“Because you are mine,” he said simply, “and I am yours. Not because you’re perfect. But because you let me love you, even when it’s hard.”

Spring came early that year.

The snow melted fast, and the forest bloomed with strange silver flowers—ones Seraphine had never seen before. She took it as a sign: even things the earth had never known could bloom, given the right moment.

She began to speak again, slowly. She told him stories, pieces of truths she had locked away. She told him about the voice inside her that still whispered cruel things. About how she sometimes didn’t know who she was without the pain.

Caelum didn’t try to soothe it away. He listened.

And when she asked him if he ever feared she would disappear again, he smiled and said, “Even if you did, I would find you.”

Their love was not perfect. But it was real.

They argued sometimes. She wandered still, from time to time, needing her quiet. But now, she left letters on the table before she went. And when she returned, it was always to Caelum’s arms.

They never married—not officially. There was no temple, no priest, no vows under the sun.

But one night, under the stars, she took a silver thread from her wrist and tied it to his. No magic. Just promise.

“You are mine,” she whispered.

“And you are mine,” he echoed.

Not possession.

But belonging.