“But they don’t unite for us.”
Veyra shook her head. “No. They won’t.”
Kara took a half-step forward, confusion spilling out. “Why? The Arcanth called to him. I felt it. It chose him.”
“Yes,” Veyra replied, her gaze sliding briefly to Sebastian. “But the Warrior alone is not enough.”
Kara’s heart stuttered. “What do you mean?”
Veyra didn’t answer but walked between two columns, leading them out of the corridor into a section of the library on their left, lit in low torchlight. The walls held books from floor to ceiling and in the centre was a small wooden table. Veyra settled herself at it and looked up at them.
“Answer her,” Sebastian demanded, eyes darting around the room. “What did you mean?”
“The Arcanth requires you both,” Veyra told them. “It responds to a Soulbond alone.”
A Soulbond.
The air left her. Sebastian stiffened beside her as his grip faltered for the first time.
“No,” he said harshly. “No, that’s not–” He stopped himself, shaking his head violently as though he could throw the thought off. “We can’t. I can’t.”
Kara turned towards him, startled. “Sebastian–” but he stepped out of her reach, throwing his hand up to stop her advancing.
Veyra’s gaze sharpened, as though she read the panic in him as clearly as words on a page. “The path you have walked was necessary, to allow a Soulbond to occur.”
“You knew all this would happen?” Sebastian asked, stunned.
Veyra inclined her head almost imperceptibly. It was enough.
“Everything we’ve been through,” Kara said, horror dawning. “You knew. You let it happen.”
Sebastian’s voice was low. “Do you know what she endured?”
Veyra’s expression didn’t change. “Yes. I do. But Draknor are coming – days or weeks, it is not clear – but they will land before the winter frost. Whether you unite the Shards or not.” Her tone was not cruel, just certain. That was worse.
“Why didn’t you tell the Council that?” Kara demanded.
“If we had,” Veyra said calmly, “and they’d allowed the Shards to be removed... the Healer would never have been sent after the Warrior. You would not be standing together now.”
Kara took a step back, reeling. “You don’t know that.”
“Were you,” Veyra asked, “or were you not engaged to the Caldris son before you hunted this man?”
Sebastian stiffened beside her. Kara didn’t answer. They all knew the answer.
“Left on your original path,” Veyra said, “you would have wed Caldris and called it duty.”
The words hit Kara like a physical blow. She thought of Henry’s dutiful face, the weight of her father’s expectations, the quiet suffocation she had once accepted as her future – and she saw it clearly. Henry’s hand in hers, the wedding, the crushing emptiness.
Sebastian’s free hand clenched into a fist. “Then why tell the Council of a prophecy at all?”
Veyra’s gaze turned to him, maddeningly calm. “It is our duty. And ask yourself, would your father have helped you without it? Would Tobias Thorne have stood beside you if he did not also believe Draknor were coming?”
Sebastian and Kara shared a look of unpleasant surprise. Evidently, as the bloodline of Fatàn, Veyra saw far more than she’d ever revealed to the Council.
“Tobias Thorne was integral to your success. We performed our duty to Vallenna. We do not, as a rule, interfere. We allow the Council to make its own decisions. Those decisions led you to each other.”
“It nearly burned her alive,” Sebastian snarled.
