He remembered. He remembered dying. He’d felt Silas’s blade piercing his heart – the agony in his chest. The moment he’d realised he’d failed. And Kara’s face, the last thing he saw as he fell, horrified and devastated. The crushing blackness that followed. He’d faced death a hundred times. Expected it, even. But waking from it – feeling life flood back when he’d been certain it was over – that was something else entirely. He’d opened his eyes in his chambers, heart pounding, memories fractured, two realities in his head: dying on the battlefield, and riding home victorious. He’d died. And lived. Both real. Both true. Sebastian had no time to process it before he’d felt her deep in his chest – raw terror and desperate hope – and heard her screaming his name across the Keep. His body had moved before his mind caught up. How was this possible? What had she been through so he could stand here with her?
He reached through their bond, and Sebastianfeltit. The hollow nights. The waking nightmare the bond break had put her in – the crippling pain and horror of the loss, the silence. He realised he hadn’t just broken her heart the night he’d fallen – he’d broken her.
It killed him all over again.
How had she survived it?
“Kara, I remember,” he rasped, trying to pull her face up, but she kept pressing kisses everywhere her lips could reach – his ribs, his arms, his shoulders – sobbing too hard to stop.
“You’re alive,” she choked out against his chest. “Say it. Tell me you’re real. Please.”
“I’m alive, I swear it,” he assured her, his own voice breaking. “I’m here. I’m real.”
“You’re real,” she repeated like a prayer. “You’re real, you’re real.”
Please don’t leave me again.
Please, please, please.
He felt her words burn through their bond. They were more desperate than any he’d ever heard. Like they were carved into her very soul.
“I won’t,” he murmured into her hair. “I won’t leave you.”
Kara only sobbed harder.
“Gods,” he whispered, stroking her tear-stained cheek. “How am I here? What did it cost you?”
But she gripped his hands, pressing trembling kisses to them as though they were something sacred.
“I don’t care–I don’tcare! I have you. You’re here, I’d do it a hundred times over,” she cried.
Sebastian had fought wars, commanded armies, stared down dark princes without faltering – but he had no armour for this. For her. For the way she held him like letting go would kill her, the worshipful way she kissed every part of him. He hardly knew what to do with a love this pure, this absolute.
How did I deserve this?
“Kara,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “You don’t have to–”
But she only shook her head violently. “Let me. Please.”
His heart ached at the words. He bent and crushed his mouth to hers, desperate to answer in the only way he knew how. He tried to pour every vow, every promise he could ever make her into that kiss.
I love you. I’m sorry.
I’ll never leave you again.
The bond flared, molten gold flooding them both. When at last they broke apart, he saw it – streaks of inky blackness threading through her magic, poisoning it.
Fuck. What did she do?
She caught the look on his face. “It doesn’t matter,” she said before he could ask.
“Yes, it does.” Sebastian took her trembling hands in his. “What happened?”
She reached up to cup his face. “Sebastian... words don’t describe it... I’ll – I’ll show you.”
Before he could protest, she opened her mind to him. He saw everything. The battlefield. His own body lying pale and still, blood spilling from his chest. Kara screaming, clawing at the dirt to reach him. His father kneeling at his side, pressing one broad hand to his forehead. No words. No tears. Just grief carved into the hard lines of his face.
“Come home to Thorne,” Tobias had said.
