She had thought it meant sacrifice. Pain. Physical death. She thought she had toppled the warning and threat with her magic.
She hadn’t realized the bond itself would die.
Whatever tether the gods, or love had allowed to form between her and Kael… had severed the moment the crown touched her head.
Her lips parted, a breath rattling from her lungs.
“Kael…” she whispered.
But he couldn’t hear.
Not anymore.
Tears swept from her eyes. Ones she couldn’t place. Pain? Loss? Weightlessness?
And in the eerie stillness of that reborn temple, Maris realized,
She was free.
And she was utterly, terribly alone.
Chapter forty-eight
The Culling
-Kael-
It began as a scream clawing deep through the marrow of his soul, raw and endless. A beautiful light dying within him that refused to go quietly.
The pain was all consuming. But hollow left behind was merciless, a darkness that devoured all else.
Kael jerked upright from the war table, the draft of the war room chilling against his skin despite the brazier’s flames. His generals froze. Draeven had just been speaking, detailing a report on ship progress—but the words wiped from Kael's memory in an instance.
Because the bond was gone.
Not dimmed.
Not distanced.
Gone.
His hands slammed the edge of the table. “Leave.” He barked.
None questioned. Even Corin and Riven moved without a word, their blood-slick armor clinking quietly as they exited. The doors groaned closed at their backs.
Kael pressed a palm to his chest as if he could reach through and find the frayed thread that had connected him to her—to Maris. But there was nothing. No echo. No tether. No soft flicker of emotion pressing against his own.
The silence inside him was deafening.
“No,” he growled in pain, pacing like a cornered beast. “No. This isn’t possible.”
He’d felt her the night before—flickers of something. He had convinced himself it was distance. That her magic was interfering. Maybe she had shut him out.
But this—this was severed. The kind of finality that offered no hope of recovery.
He threw a decanter of wine against the stone hearth and watched it explode like blood against the wall. Rage crackled through him, his shadows rising in furious tendrils around his shoulders.
He shouted, voice raw, knowing the gods were already be aware. “Tell me this is a trick. A lie.”
