“I killed people, Kara,” he snarled. “My own men. You almost burned alive. And for what? For their sick little plan to make sure we–” He paused, but he forced it out like a curse, “–to make sure wefell in love?”
“That’s not what she said–”
“It’s what she meant!” he raged. “That nothing mattered unless we were broken enough to bondproperly. Just part of their Godsdamned script!”
In pure fury he threw a large chunk of broken stone across the square. Kara, to her credit, didn’t even blink.
“What does that say about us? That you could only love me enough when I had blood on my hands. After the flames, the nightshade–” He let out a savage roar. “Only when the whole realm wanted to kill us?”
He lifted his eyes, saw her green ones looking at him with love... but there was something else. A crack – just for a moment before she hid it. Doubt.
Tell me I’m wrong, Kara, please. Lie to me if you have to.
He dragged in a shaking breath, pacing through the broken monument, shards crunching under his boots. “Without all of it, you’d still be standing with Henry Caldris, wouldn’t you? You’d belong to him.”
Deny it. Please.
She stared at him for a long moment. Her chest rising and falling too quickly. But the silence said more than her words ever could.
His throat burned as he added, laced with venom, “I heard you that night at the ball. I heard you tell Sienna that it didn’t matter how youfelt about me. That you were engaged. That you’d do your duty. Hearing it from Fatàn lips, well...” He laughed humourlessly. “It proves what I’ve always known. I was never your choice.”
Her lips parted, but still not one word of denial passed her lips.
I fucking knew it.
His voice cracked but he pushed the words out. “That you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, have just loved me for me?”
Every second she hesitated cut deeper. He felt a wall go up between them. She must have too because he saw panic slip into her gaze as he turned away.
“No,” she cried. “No, don’t you dare think that. Of course I love you for you, Sebastian.”
Right.
Kara’s voice trembled. “I told Sienna at the ball – I told her I cared about you, more than I should. That I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Long before there was fire. Or Shards. You were already there, in my heart. You didn’t hear that, did you?”
He turned his head, hardly enough to catch her eye.
“But,” she added, tears threatening, “Veyra was right. I might not have chosen. Not then. Not until I was forced to. But Sebastian, you have to know Iwantedto. And it doesn’t mean I love you any less now. It just means I’m not proud of how weak I was. Of how long it took me to act on what I already knew.”
Not then.
Not until he was the last thing between her and death. A choice made with a blade at her throat. The only way someone like him could be chosen at all. Kara took a shaky step towards him but didn’t close the distance.
“Every night after you left the City,” she said, voice shaking. “I dreamt of you. Only you. Of running to you in Durent, begging you to take me away from Henry.”
He wanted that to be true, that she’d wanted him even then. Gods, he wanted it. But his thoughts were poison.
An escape. That’s all it was.
“And when we were chasing you, whilst everyone else saw a thief, a traitor, all I could think was that you were the man who saved my life. A good man.”
“Good?” A humourless laugh tore out of him. “Those feelings didn’t stop you, did they? Weren’t enough then. You still captured me. Bound me. Did yourduty.”
The moment he’d said it, he knew he’d gone too far. She looked like he’d hit her.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.
“Four days,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “We’d known each other forfourdays. I was raised on obedience, duty. It wasn’t exactly simple. But I broke all of that foryou.” She advanced on him, shaking with fury and hurt. “How could you throw that back at me? After everything?”
