Sienna tried. So did Alys. They begged, pleaded, wrapped her in blankets against the frigid night air. They brought food, tried to get her to eat something,anything.But it tasted of nothing. Sips of water were all she managed. The food lay untouched beside her. Kara pulled away from them, her voice breaking on the same words every time they tried to move her.
“I won’t leave him. Not again.”
Her mother had come eventually. Gotten away from Alaric to be with her. Alys and Sienna retreated quietly into the Keep as her mother knelt by her side.
“Kara.” She took Kara’s freezing hand in hers. “Darling, I’m so sorry–”
“Don’t.”
Her hands bloomed violet. “Please, just let me help–”
“There’s nothing you can do.” She met her mother’s eyes. “Nothing anyone can do.”
Her mother looked anguished.
“Just go inside,” Kara said.
“I’m not leaving you–”
“You’re making it worse,” Kara cried. “Looking at me like that.” She pulled her hand away. “I can’t–”
“I’m not trying–”
“Leave me alone. I just want to be with him.”
“Kara, he’s–”
“I KNOW,” she shouted. “I KNOW HE’S DEAD.” The sobs came then. Desperate and unrelenting. “I feel itall the time–”
“Sebastian wouldn’t want this–”
“DON’T SAY HIS NAME. You don’t get to, you didn’t even know him–”
“I know he loved you–”
Kara actually put her hands over her ears. “Stop it, stop it,please–”
Eliyana sat there quietly. Didn’t reach for her again. Just waited until Kara dropped her hands.
“I’ll be in the Keep,” her mother said finally. “When you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.”
She left without another word.
Kara turned back to his grave and pressed her forehead against the cold stone. It wasn’t until after the third night had passed, and sunrise bled over the graveyard, that Tobias came to her. He watched her for a moment, then lowered himself onto the ground beside her.
“You don’t have to sit with me,” Kara murmured.
“I do.” Tobias drew in a shaky breath, eyes fixed on his son’s grave. “I cannot bring him back. Gods, if I could trade places with him, I would. But I cannot. What I can do–” he swallowed once, pushing down his own threatening tears. “–is ensure you do not walk this grief alone.”
Kara said nothing, but she could see now, clearer than ever, that this was the man who’d raised the person she loved.
“When my wife died,” he said slowly, “I thought I would never recover.”
Her head lifted, startled. Surely, he wouldn’t try to tell her she would get better. There was no recovering from this. No hope of it. It was the risk she had taken in Fatàn.
“We were not Soulbonded,” he hurried on. “But I loved her more than my own life.”
Her gaze dropped back to the stone.
