But she was too late. She knew what was going to happen before it did. Her magic flared – beginning to gather – but before it could form, Silas drove his blade down, directly through Sebastian’s chest.
NO! Sebastian!
Their bond shuddered violently.
Agony tore through her.
Sebastian staggered. His eyes found hers as he fell, and she felt a rush of love one last time – fierce and final.
Then their bond snapped.
It left only silence in its wake, the absence worse than any wound – like glass shattering inside her chest, jagged edges tearing at her. It left her bleeding. Hollow. The sound that ripped from her was visceral, animal. Inhuman in its awfulness.
And Silas? Silaslaughed.
Golden light erupted from Kara in the next heartbeat, not called, not controlled – a detonation of grief and fury that tore the air apart along with her screams.
Arcanth power. Combined with the agony that could only come from a soul breaking in two. It was ice and fire and pain that felt as if it would swallow her whole.
She didn’t care.
It rushed outward in a blinding wave. Silas’s expression shifted to one of shock. It was all he could do before the golden light consumed him. It swallowed his laughter, shattered his shadows, tore him and his cursed Dracanth apart, until there was nothing left. Not just dead – obliterated. But the light didn’t stop. It tore through the Draken ranks, hundreds falling in an instant. Those that remained scattered, and began fleeing back towards their black ships, their will broken. The battlefielditself shook beneath the force of it. The magic took everything from her. Every ounce of strength, every last drop of power. Her vision blurred and her legs gave out. Kara fell, hard, her knees hitting the blood-soaked earth as she clawed her way to Sebastian. He lay on his back, exactly where he’d fallen, eyes closed, blood spilling across his armour. She pressed her hands desperately against his chest. Stared in horror at the wound that had stolen him from her. His hand still gripped the hilt of his sword. Death itself hadn’t been enough to make him let go.
No. No, he’s not dead. He can’t be dead.
She shoved emerald into him – her soul forcing her magic to obey – pouring everything, anything she had left, begging, denying. But it recoiled from the wound, the magic itself refusing to touch it. It knew.
Death was absolute.
“Come back to me. Please, come back–”
She tried again, harder, until her whole body shook with the force of it. But she felt nothing. He had no heartbeat. Nothing to heal. Her bondmate, the love of her life, her Sebastian... was gone.
“We said we’d fight him together,” she choked. “I’m so sorry.”
Her sobbing turned violent and unrelenting. It wasn’t a sound meant for battlefields or human ears – it was a haunting cry, too intimate, too broken.
Yet it carried.
It rippled out across the field until the Vallennan line stilled, blades slack at their sides. Hardened Thorne soldiers, men who’d stared death in the face, wiped tears from their cheeks, unable to bear the sound. Durent men dropped their axes. Lyrans, their hands trembling violet, cast wave after wave of calming magic over her, but the grief pouring from Kara was too vast, too wild to be soothed. It drowned their efforts, echoing louder than any spell. Even the captured Draken, those few still breathing, recoiled from it, clamping their hands over their ears, hissing in discomfort. The battlefield, for the first time since the enemy landed, was still.
Sebastian Thorne, son of Tobias, Commander of the Thorne army, lay fallen in his beloved’s arms. And the people of Vallenna, every House and banner, bore witness.
No one dared to disturb the moment.
It was Tobias that moved first, slow and unsure, until he stood over his son’s body and Kara weeping across it. His crimson faltered across his knuckles as he knelt down and placed one weathered hand onSebastian’s forehead. A soldier’s goodbye. He turned to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Kara,” he said gently. “He’s gone.”
No. Don’t say that.
She shook her head fiercely. Crushed her hands harder against Sebastian’s chest as if sheer will would restart his heart. “No. No, he’s not. He can’t–”
Tobias’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “Come on, Kara. Let’s get you out of here.”
Her scream was desperate. Mindless. It split the air as she clung to Sebastian’s lifeless body. “I WON’T LEAVE HIM!”
“He will come with us,” Tobias promised gruffly. “I swear it. He won’t be left behind.”
