Return of the Legendary Runesmith - Chapter 420

Chapter 420: Chapter 419- Reconnect
“Mm…” Raven groaned softly in her sleep as her lashes fluttered, parting just enough to let in the quiet darkness of her room.

The shadows wrapped around her like a familiar blanket, and she silently thanked the fact that her curtains always kept the world dim.

A thin streak of morning light slipped through the small gap in the drapes, just enough for her to notice a silhouette—someone sitting in the corner, unmoving, watching her with a heavy presence she recognized instantly.

Raven blinked away the haze, pushed herself upright on trembling arms, and whispered, “Adrian? W-What happened to that man? Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Her voice cracked, weighted with the last memory burned into her mind—the moment she saw Adrian’s back moving farther away from her as he confronted the anomaly, the one threatening to wipe out their only source of food. She remembered fear…then nothing.

But Adrian said nothing now. He only stood up slowly, as though every step cost him breath, and walked toward her.

Something about his silence made her chest tighten.

“Tell me,” she pleaded, “what happened, Adrian? Please… you’re scaring me.”

The way he was looking at her, like he was carrying a storm behind his eyes… it told her something had gone terribly wrong.

Yet there was relief too. He was here. He was safe. He was with her.

Adrian lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, his shoulders tense, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

When he reached out and cupped her cheek, Raven felt his hand trembling.

“I-I…” he began, struggling for breath. “I don’t know how I should even begin. I didn’t know if I… if I should show you my face after what happened.”

Raven inhaled sharply. “What happened, Adrian? Just tell me. I promise I won’t be mad.”

She expected him to say the plantations were destroyed—that they lost everything again. It would explain his guilt… but something in his gaze told her the truth was heavier… deeper… far more personal.

Adrian lowered his gaze, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I… abandoned you, Querella.”

Her entire world paused.

Raven’s eyes widened, her breath caught.

For a heartbeat, time froze—because she knew exactly what he meant.

“I abandoned you when you needed me the most,” he continued, voice cracking. “I didn’t keep my vow to stand by you in sickness and in health. I failed you.”

He knows.

He remembers.

Querella couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. The realization crashed into her like a cold wave, harsher than she ever imagined.

Adrian took her hand gently, his fingers shaking as though he feared she’d pull away.

“I should have been there,” he whispered, breaking. “With you. I can only imagine how shattered you must have been… You loved the child. You wanted that future. And instead of holding you when everything fell apart… I left. I disappeared. I made it look like I cared about the child but not you.”

“I-It’s not like that…” Raven breathed, gathering the last bit of strength in her heart.

She lifted her hand, cupping his cheek just as he did hers, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“You didn’t abandon me for nothing, Adrian. I know that. You loved me. No one can erase that. Not time. Not memory. Not pain.”

A single tear slipped down his face, staining her thumb with the weight of his regret.

“Then why…” he whispered, voice breaking apart, “why didn’t I come back for the woman I loved?”

Raven’s heart crumpled.

She had no answer.

She waited.

Days turned to weeks.

Weeks into months.

Months into years.

She searched for traces of him—messages, letters, a whisper from the dimensional chat.

Nothing.

He was gone.

Completely gone.

Everyone on the server knew the last person Avirin saw before his disappearance was Raven, but they never knew what happened when he was with her that he never appeared on the chat ever again.

Adrian looked at her distant, hollow expression and felt his own heart sink deeper and deeper.

The guilt, the regret, the shame—they wrapped around him like chains, tightening with every breath.

Something dark was spreading inside him… something born from knowing the truth:

He abandoned his wife.

When her world shattered.

When she needed arms to hold her, a voice to tell her she wasn’t broken.

When she needed reassurance that it wasn’t her fault.

That she was still whole.

Still loved.

Still worth living for.

But instead, Avirin vanished.

Leaving her with silence sharp enough to cut.

She was broken.

Betrayed.

Left to bleed alone in the dark.

And as Adrian looked at her now… at the woman who carried the scars of his disappearance… he felt the weight of every moment he wasn’t there pressing down on him like an ocean.

He didn’t just lose her.

He hurt her.

Deeply.

Irreversibly.

Tears streamed down Raven’s cheeks, hot and uncontrolled, as she shook her head weakly.

“No… don’t blame yourself… I know you must have had a reason—”

“How can you still speak for me?” Adrian cut in, his voice trembling, thick with rawness he could no longer hold back.

He framed her face in his hands—soft, careful, terrified of hurting her again.

“After everything you went through… how can you still say I wasn’t in the wrong? That I didn’t betray you?”

His breath brushed against her skin as he pulled her closer until their foreheads touched. His voice dropped to a broken whisper.

“Blame me, Querella… I need to hear your truth or I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror again. Tell me. Please.”

Querella’s lips quivered, her gaze falling to her lap.

“You are not the one I should be complaining to…” she murmured, barely audible.

There was too much pain in her eyes—pain she never let herself spill, pain that had festered in silence for years.

Adrian’s heart squeezed at the sight.

He looked at her with desperation, but she refused to meet his eyes, as though looking at him would rip open everything she’d tried to bury.

Before she could pull further into herself, Adrian cupped her cheek once more—gently yet firmly enough that she couldn’t shy away.

And without giving himself time to think, to fear, to hesitate…

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.

His lips crashed against hers—not gently, not carefully, but with the force of years’ worth of regret, longing, grief, and love that had been strangled silent inside him.

It wasn’t a tender kiss.

It was bruising.

Desperate.

A plea and an apology tangled together.

Querella gasped against his mouth, her fingers instinctively gripping his shirt as if the bed had vanished beneath her..

Adrian held her face like he was afraid she would disappear if he loosened even a little. His thumbs trembled against her skin, his breath shuddering as he poured every unspoken word into the kiss.

The rawness of it tore something open in her.

All the years she spent holding herself together—waiting, hurting, denying, pretending—broke apart under the weight of him finally being here, finally touching her like she mattered, like she was the only thing left keeping him alive.

But then—some small, fragile thread of reason pulled her back.

Querella’s breath hitched, and she tore her lips away from his, shaking her head violently.

“Don’t… don’t give me hope,” she whispered, voice breaking. “We can’t—Adrian, we can’t be together again.”

Her words trembled like a plea born from fear rather than rejection.

But Adrian’s eyes darkened—not with anger, but with a conviction so fierce it left her breathless.

In one swift motion, he pushed her gently yet firmly back onto the bed, caging her beneath him. His arms bracketed her, leaving her nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—not from him, and not from the truth between them.

“I am not leaving you, Querella.”

His voice was deep, unwavering, every syllable shaking with emotion.

“I took vows to always be with you. I failed them once… but I will *not* fail them again.”

Before she could protest, his mouth descended on hers once more.

This kiss wasn’t wild like the first.

It was hungry.

Claiming.

A promise and a punishment all at once.

Querella trembled beneath him, her hands pressing against his chest in a desperate attempt to push him away… but her strength faltered the moment his lips moved with aching tenderness against hers.

Adrian caught her wrist mid-push, his grip firm but gentle. Slowly, deliberately, he guided her hand upward until their palms met above her head.

And then—

Their fingers intertwined.

Like two souls reaching across years of distance, finally touching again.

Her breath stuttered at the feeling—his warmth, his certainty, the way his hand enveloped hers like a promise he intended to carve into fate itself.

Their lips parted once again.

Her eyes held uncertainty, worry for the future.

In a trembling voice, Querella told him, “You can’t play with my feelings…I won’t let you go this time if you don’t release me now.”

Adrian’s response was not spoken.

He just led her hand to his face and kissed the back of her hand.

The answer was clear.

He wasn’t leaving.

He was here to reconnect with his wife.

°°°°°°°°°

A/N:- Thanks for reading.