I flinched as he suddenly turned around. I could tell he was growing weaker keeping Sebastian within his illusion and attempting to sedate me. I lifted my hand, placing it delicately on his arm.
“Alaric, please stop,” I whispered.
That strange calm hit me with such force I fell to the ground, gasping for breath. I looked up to him with tears burning my eyes. I wouldn’t let him kill Sebastian. I would exert myself to the point of death fighting the hungry waves hellbent to pull me under. And if I broke free, I’d have to kill him. Because he finally snapped. I felt the aftershocks of all that fell within him, what the threads held carefully in place. He wouldn’t allow someone else to be taken from him, but he didn’t realize he would be killing his own brother to keep me. He couldn’t see it.
“Alaric, please don’t make me do this.” The words fell between sobs.
He looked to me, a face upturned and dug out. His wild eyes held sorrow and anger. Confusion and hesitancy. A turmoil sovisceral I questioned my own existence. I felt the fire that burned through him, and I wondered how he was still standing and how long it had been burning this way. I could hardly stand it, could barely hold a hand out, and he was immersed.
And his eyes softened as he held my image. “Don’t worry, my love. This will all be over soon.” He turned to Sebastian. I could faintly hear what he had murmured. “Not again.”
The glint of the black tourmaline blinded me, plunging me into ice water, seizing my limbs.
No.
My face split into a horrendous sob as I pushed through the sedation. I gripped the bedpost, climbing onto heavy feet. I waded through years of repression and unspoken words to get to him, aching smiles and rigid posture, through all that wanted me out of their sight. I trudged through the contentment to die to grant them a better view, and I crossed over to the other side.
For the first time in my life, I lifted my dagger.
And plunged it into his back.
I fell to my knees as he sank to the floor. I held him in my arms, struggling to hold his weight, setting him down gently as I leaned over him. Sebastian sat up, released from his illusion, and knelt beside us. His pain melded with mine. Our bond a bridge of torment, joining our exposed chests, flayed flesh and broken ribs.
What I didn’t expect to see in Alaric’s golden eyes as he looked up at me was pure, encompassing awe. “Finally,” he breathed with a whisper of a smile on his lips.
“I ... I’m ...” Each word crumbled to ash in my mouth.
“Don’t be sorry. Never be sorry.” He raised his hand, cupping the side of my face. I exhaled at the thawing cold. His hand grew warmer against me. I gripped his wrist, pressing his hand further into me, feeling the heat that would soon dissipate.
My tears spilled over, trailing down his hand. His thumb ran over them.
“Don’t cry for me, darling. I know what I am.”
And I saw myself through his eyes then, through the fading tracking spell and the soulmate bond that would be with me forever. And I couldn’t breathe through the sight. He craved so desperately to be loved, and he placed all he ever had in me.
I knew he could see himself through my eyes as I looked down to him with a severed soul.
“It’s enough just to know that you care.” He inhaled a weak breath. It wasn’t enough air. I could feel it in my own chest. His hand softened against me as I held it up, growing limp.
“It’s enough, drenlunne.”
A riot of emotions warred within me, marring my soft tissue with eternal scars. For a moment, anger ignited and raged through me at him making me do this, at my hand that buried the dagger in his back, at the life forever tied to me, the life I took. I wanted to sob and pound my fists into him for making me take his life. The life he threw away. The life he couldn’t get a hold of. The life that slipped through his fingers. The life that was taken from him before I ever knew him. I wanted to storm through the earth and burn it down, pass through worlds spreading hellfire for what they took from him.
But the anger ebbed, leaving me in a barren wasteland, like the one I had painted over and over. Peeling open wounds once healed over, exposing them to the acrid air, renewing an unending ache. An ache for the love I wished he could give himself, for the love that should have never been taken from him.
And he felt it all, and he smiled.
I leaned down, pressing a kiss on to his forehead, the warmth gone too soon as the chill seeped back in. As I rose looking into his eyes for the last time, I had never seen a man so content to die.
His eyes slid over to Sebastian. A silent conversation passed between them. Sebastian berated himself with failure for not being able to save him. Alaric wished he could but held no blame over him.
“You were always loved, brother. You always will be.” Pain cut through Sebastian’s detached voice.
Alaric let out a long exhale that ended too quickly. His eyes drifted closed.
“My desk drawer, dove.” His voice was so faint I nearly missed it.
A cold hand reached deep within me, stealing my breath, leaving me gasping for air. Sebastian quickly moved behind me, lifting me up onto his lap. Alaric slipped from my arms. My ragged breaths tore through the hollow room, each one too short. Violent shivers shook through me as my body plunged into a deep cold.
