Fading Shadows, Burning Hearts

She's altered, he realized, his chest closing up. But so have I.

And yet. she was Sasha. The same girl who had laughed too freely, who had disapproved of him with the sole purpose of hearing how he would react, who had stood outside the training arenas regardless of how long he kept her waiting—just to walk home with him.

Now, she sat beside him, trembling, silent, shining in that quiet, devastating kind of sadness that only love could leave behind.

Victor's voice came again, low and rough, cutting through the air between them. "I mean it, Sasha. I'm… really sorry."

This time, she turned toward him fully. Her eyes glimmered under the moonlight, caught between disbelief and pain. Her lips parted, her voice trembling just enough to betray her restraint.

"Why…?"

Her voice cracked with that one word, so thin and shaken, as if something within her had snapped.

He blinked, dazed by her tone, torn between guilt and confusion. "Why?"

"Why did you do that to me?" she whispered, so softly it was hardly louder. Every syllable shook as if pain hurt to release. "Why did you push me away? Why act like I didn't exist?"

Victor's lips parted, and nothing came out. His throat constricted, a thousand ideas battling to get through, but none could find her. None could tell her what he'd done—what he'd become. Anything he said would hurt her more.

The moonlight stroked her eyes, catching the glistening wet sheen there. They were lovely, even when shattered. Especially shattered.

Do you know," she whispered, half to herself, "how many times I went to your place after that night? How many nights I stood at your gate, waiting—just waiting—to see you come out?" Her voice cracked once more, gentle but with a painful undercurrent. "I told myself I'd shout at you. I'd curse you, throw something if I had to.". But every time I saw your window dark…" She let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sob.

"I just went home."

Victor's chest constricted until it ached. His fingers curled against his knees, wanting to span the distance between them, to grasp her hand, to whisper I never wanted to lose you. But his body did not respond. Not yet. Not when his own guilt still bound him down.

He took a deep breath. The evening was filled with the smell of wet ground and flowers—sweet, heavy, home. The smell recalled everything: the laughter, the heat, the moment he'd released her.

"Sasha…" His voice was hushed, gruff, little more than the rustle of wind.

Her eyes flicked to him, abrupt now, warily guarded, as if fearing what he would say next.

He breathed out, eyes dropping. "In the past…" He stood there, words suspended in the air, delicate and uncertain, as glass balanced on the lip of a table. How was he supposed to do it? How was he going to tell her that the man she had loved—wholeheartedly, foolhardily—was dead? That the man who sat beside her now was someone recreated, rebuilt in ways she couldn't see and hardly understand? Spiritually transformed, irreparably transformed, a soul that had weathered fires she would never experience.

His former self, careless and stupid, had hurt her without ever comprehending the fullness of her presence, without ever sensing how much she had loved him. Victor's eyes lingered on her, savoring all the tiny details that betrayed her hidden pain. The gentle quiver of her lips under the deliberate line of her jaw, the faint, lingering bruise on her wrist where the bracelet he once gave her lay, the gentle rising and falling of her chest as he shifted even just a fraction—as if she was afraid he would disappear again, leaving her with silence and absence.

Each movement of her face said more than her words did.

The stillness between them was heavy, nearly oppressive, against their ribs as if the night itself had mass.

Sasha's eyes fell to her lap. "You always cut short," she spoke softly, voice low and nearly cracked, but bearing the burden of blame and desire simultaneously. "Even now."

Victor's own chest ached, pain curling within him like a serpent.

He wanted—more than anything—to spill the truth, to lay bare the distorted hallways of his heart, to reveal to her how the universe had remade him, how every fiber of him had altered in ways he was still learning. But who was he to command her to understand? Who was he to request she carry a truth even he was still struggling to comprehend fully? The words that wanted to be spoken lodged in his throat, unshaped and weighted.

And so he remained quiet, allowing the silence to settle between them, allowing it to breathe, let it ache. He sat there, beneath the soft, watchful light of the moon, with the woman whose heart he had broken, allowing the space to expand without bridge or apology.

The fountain murmured softly in the distance, its water reflecting the moonlight in shining pieces. The night shrouded them like a secret, an intimate, a sorrowful one, bearing with it all that was unspoken.

Her hand moved marginally, touching the edge of his sleeve—so slight, so gentle, it might have been nothing. But Victor sensed it, that light touch sending the heat creeping up his arm, reviving memories he had fought so desperately to leave behind. It wasn't contact, not exactly; it was a breath of all the things they'd never said, a spark of bond that had endured even when apart.

He raised his eyes slowly, near fear of what he would see. And there it was—their eyes meeting once more. No need for words. The silence between them was oppressive, thick with years of regret, longing, and unspoken emotion. His eyes were weighed down with mistakes, with lost moments to pride and obstinacy. Hers showed hurt, sharp and raw, yet under it was a tenuous thread of hope, begrudging but irrevocable. She changed position, just slightly, and then glanced away. The motion was soundless, subtle, but it sliced through him deeper than any words ever could. Victor's heart was aching, an empty tug in his chest that made him long to reach, to call out to her, to insist on more than this brief touch—but he did not.

He understood that silence spoke more truth than any words, and in it, he sensed something he hadn't sensed in years: the unvarnished and unself-conscious honesty of her presence.

For an endless second, he just breathed, allowing the silence to stretch between them. He saw then, with a clarity that shocked him, that if she could be truthful, if she could bare herself in this tenuous, shaking manner, then he owed her the same. He owed himself the bravery to talk, to remove the walls he had constructed, plank by plank, around his heart.

He took a slow, measured breath, savoring the night air, anchoring himself in the weight of the moment. "Because in the past…" he started again—

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