“Kara!” His voice was frenzied. “KARA!”
She screamed his name once before a soldier dragged her upright onto the saddle of a valmare. Through the ringing in her ears, she caught fragments of the soldiers’ voices:
“–split them up–”
“–the girl to the City–”
Don’t take him from me.
They weren’t just captured. They were being torn apart.
Her head snapped back to find Sebastian, still struggling wildly, his gaze fixed on her – wide, furious, desperate – until darkness swallowed him. The valmare beneath her lunged into the night, forest flying past, the rider’s arms locked hard, caging her.
She didn’t need magic to know: as long as Sebastian Thorne drew breath, he would not stop fighting to reach her.
CHAPTER 23
DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS
All trials for crimes against the realm shall be held in Vallenna City before the High Council. The accused’s House may petition for trial to be conducted within their own lands, subject to Council approval.
–Vallennan Law, Statute XVII, Subsection IV
They wrenched Sebastian’s shoulders back until fire shot through his muscles. The nightshade ropes bit into his wrists, the all-too-familiar deadening spreading through his veins. His magic guttered. Died. Rage and helplessness warred inside him. He’d never needed it more – and it wasgone.
Someone ripped the satchel from him.
“They’re all here,” a voice said.
Three Shards. Taken.
He barely felt it. Didn’t care. All that mattered was–
Kara.
He caught one final glimpse of her, as she was thrown onto a valmare. Her eyes found his. Wide. Terrified. But defiant. Even bound, even surrounded, she held her head high.
Then she disappeared. Towards the City.
They shoved him forward, dragging him through the mud like he was nothing, like he wasn’t Sebastian fucking Thorne, until they forced him to stop on his knees in front of a dark carriage. One of them forced his head down roughly.
“Don’t bother fighting, traitor. The trial’s ceremony – the pyre is real enough,” the soldier spat, voice dripping with contempt.
Several hands threw him bodily into the iron-barred carriage. He hit the floor hard, his bound arms useless to break his fall. Pain tore throughhis ribs, the breath knocked out of his lungs. For a heartbeat he couldn’t move, his body refusing him – and the humiliation of it burned.
No. Get up.
Rage dragged him upright onto his knees. He looked up. One of his father’s lieutenants – a man who’d fought beside him in the Southern Isles – looked down with something like pity. “You should have left the healer out of it,” he muttered just before he slammed the door. The lock clicked shut and the world shrank to solid walls and pitch blackness.
“Kara!” The word ripped out of him, raw and ragged.
He hurled himself against the carriage wall, shoulder first. The wood shuddered but held. He struck again. Harder. Fire shot through his ribs. His vision blurred.
He didn’t care.
His wrists bled where the ropes bit deeper with every movement, blood sliding warm down his hands.
Still, he fought.
