Simone Navyr followed. “Guilty.”
Elias Lyra hesitated only a moment. Then: “Guilty.”
Evelyn Sorrel looked at her with deep sadness before she said, “Guilty.”
Galen Caldris. His gaze flicked towards her, before glancing to Henry, seated in the gallery. “Guilty.”
The room fell silent again. Only one Council member remained.
Her father.
Kara looked directly at him. He was frozen in place – his fists clenched on the arms of his chair. She couldn’t read him. She didn’t want to beg. She wouldn’t. A long moment passed. Something calculating passed across his face. Kara had seen that look before. And then, finally, his voice:
“...I abstain.”
The blood drained from her cheeks. It wasn’t protection. Alaric Hale had decided the version of himself he could live with. He wouldn’t condemn her, no. Couldn’t bring himself to say the actual words. But he wouldn’t try to save her either. It was worse than guilty. It was nothing. Just abandonment. Distance. Silence.
The judge inclined his head. “Five guilty. One abstention. The Council has rendered its judgement.”
Guilty.
There was a moment of silence – then the gallery erupted – not in horror, but anger. Shouts. A few cheers. Some applause. Someone yelled “traitor.” Another spat towards the platform.
Kara flinched. They weren’t just cheering her death. They were demanding it. She stood there in the middle of it all – bound, alone – as the City celebrated the verdict. And her father said nothing.
The judge banged his gavel. “Silence!” he commanded. As the crowd quieted, he turned his attention back to her.
“You will be taken back to the holding cells. No visitors. I will consider all that I have heard and pass sentence tomorrow.”
Sebastian, I love you.
If I don’t get to tell you, please know it. Please feel it.
The guards took her arms and guided her off the platform, back towards the courtyard, and her cell. As she walked from the chamber, she looked back once – to the Council, and the place where her father still sat. He stared back, silent and unmoved. If this was the last time she saw him – then so be it.
He hadn’t stopped riding. Not through the night, or when the sun rose behind him. Not when he thundered over the Durent border. Not even when the pain in his ribs turned sharp and hot with every breath. Every hoofbeat was one second closer. Or one second too late. When the valmare faltered, Sebastian had no choice. He hauled her into a village stable, and slid off before she’d fully stopped. Her flanks were trembling, foam around her mouth. Guilt stabbed at him.
I’m sorry. But Kara matters more.
He tore the saddle free, and thrust the reins at a stable hand. “Water her. Let her rest.” He didn’t wait for an answer, or ask or explain. Justthrew himself onto the first valmare he saw – a light grey, startled and stubborn under his weight – and drove her into a gallop before the stable hand’s shouts had even faded. One more crime; one more person he’d wronged.
I don’t care.
He’d lost feeling in his fingers, but kept an iron grip on the reins. Mercifully, his magic had begun to spark back to life, crimson igniting faintly across his hands. He used it to dull the pain in his ribs. The wind whipped his cloak behind him. Dirt and blood streaked his face. His tunic was soaked through with sweat, but he barely noticed.
Please. Let me reach her.
He didn’t know who he was begging. The Gods? The Arcanth? Fate? It didn’t matter. He’d bargain with anything – his life, his soul, his House – if it would get him there faster. He knew how justice worked in Vallenna, how quickly verdicts turned to executions when someone had made up their mind. If Kara’s trial had already started – if the Council had already ruled, if he were too late–
No, he wouldn’t think it–
But his mind had already envisioned the possibilities.
If Kara died, he would sail across the eastern reach, Vallenna be damned, and beg the Occarli on his hands and knees to use their time magic to send him back and save her. Oath or no oath. And if they refused? He’d cut down as many as needed to get what he wanted.
He forced the thoughts down. He wouldn’t be too late. Kara would live. He gritted his teeth and leaned lower in the saddle, urging the valmare on.
Hold on, Kara. Just hold on.
