"Elias."
Kaelith spoke the name as though saying it aloud had reopened a wound he had spent centuries trying to close.
The man inside the corridor stopped turning.
Rin looked from him to Kaelith, waiting for an explanation that did not come.
"Who is Elias?" Rin asked.
Kaelith's fingers curled at his sides.
"No one you need to know."
"That isn't your decision."
"Rin."
"Don't." Rin stepped away when Kaelith reached for him. "You told me you would walk beside me. You didn't promise to answer every question, but you did promise not to decide what I was allowed to know."
Kaelith lowered his hand.
Behind them, the other Aelion watched with an expression that was difficult to read.
"You see?" he said quietly. "This is how it begins again. One person decides that a truth is too painful for another to bear. Then the silence becomes a prison, and eventually the prison becomes a world."
Kaelith turned on him.
"You have no right to speak about what happened."
