“And now your love is forged in flame,” Veyra said without flinching. “To Soulbond, you must be willing to die for one another. It’s more than love – it’s unconditional, irrevocable. You...” Her violet eyes glittered. “have now proven that.”
Kara’s fingers found Sebastian’s on pure instinct. He didn’t move, but he didn’t pull away either. Their magic glimmered faintly.
Sebastian’s voice rose. “You didn’t have to force this! The Arcalon – our magic reached for each other. We knew there was something, even then. You didn’t need to drag Kara through hell to prove it.”
“He’s right,” Kara confirmed. “We both felt it.”
Veyra nodded. “Yes, this is true. We watched you. The Warrior and the Healer. Every trial, every choice. The bond between you grew, before you truly understood it yourselves. And yet you did not choose him. Even when your magic stirred, you walked away.”
“I didn’t want to–” Kara began.
“But still you did,” Veyra said, frowning slightly. “We did not wish this path for you, Healer. We hoped your feelings alone would beenough. Perhaps then we could have guided the Council to a more peaceful method. But you chose duty and comfort. A life that would doom Vallenna. So we ensured duty and comfort were no longer options.”
“You let the Council name us traitors,” Sebastian spat. “When you knew the truth.”
“Yes,” Veyra said. “And I did not intervene in her trial that followed.”
“You could have stopped all of it,” Kara said.
“I could have,” Veyra said evenly. “But your choice made this path necessary. I will not apologise for ensuring Vallenna’s survival.”
Veyra stopped, and watched Kara closely. Crimson light snaked over Sebastian’s arms.
“That wasn’t my choice–” Kara began, her words tangling. “You don’t understand – you’re twisting what–”
“You hunted him, captured him,” she said, unblinking. “Only changing your mind when the truth of his execution at your own hand became too much to bear.”
Kara looked desperately at Sebastian. But what could she say? His face was shadowed with doubt. Pain.
“Stop it, please,” Kara pleaded.
But Veyra wasn’t finished. “And you,” she said, now looking directly at Sebastian. “You condemned her when she betrayed you. Would you have forgiven her, Warrior, truly, if not for the trials that followed? If not for seeing her broken, bleeding, desperate to reach you? Knowing she chose to burn rather than betray you again?”
Sebastian lowered his sword, only a fraction, but it was clear the words had winded him. Shame and anger flared in Kara’s chest, at her own weakness, at the manipulation, at all of it.
Sebastian turned to her, his voice edged with desperation. “No, that’s not... I wastrying.I wanted to – I already–”
“Her terror made you both certain,” Veyra concluded. “Souls cannot be bonded whilst harbouring mistrust–”
“No! I already – I already knew I cared for her, before then.” Sebastian was shouting now. “I didn’t need –shedidn’t need–”
“It would not have been enough,” Veyra said calmly.
Sebastian jerked his hand away from Kara like it burned him. She actually gasped. He never pulled away from her like that.
“You don’tknow that,” Sebastian said angrily.
“I do,” Veyra said solemnly. “We knew the Arcanth was calling. We felt it stir – crimson and emerald leaping as one. We had not seen that in centuries. Not in texts, not in visions. We did not yet know what it meant, but we knew it was a beginning. And then... we saw you.”
Her gaze lingered on Kara, then Sebastian.
“The Shards would never have answered anyone else,” she finished.
Sebastian took a hard step towards her. “If your future needed her on a pyre, then to hells with it.”
His crimson was flaring uncontrolled over him now. Gone was the steady soldier who’d guided her here, held her in her panic. His blade only inches from Veyra’s chest.
Veyra, however, did not flinch. “And yet you followed the path laid out for you, even when you believed you were rebelling. Did you not think yourself clever, stealing a Fatàn Creststone?”
