Chapter 25 #2
A chill slides down my spine. Not at the madness—but at the image of waking in the night to find someone you love scribbling on the walls in a language you can’t read. Of watching them slip further away while you can do nothing but pretend it isn’t happening.
Thane straightens slightly. Like he’s trying to lift the weight—but it clings to him still. It’s not just memory. It’s the family legacy.
“We tried to contain the secret as much as possible,” he says. “She never left the Warlord’s wing. Only a handful of staff were assigned to care for her, and every one of them swore to discretion. Blood oaths, in some cases.”
His thumb rubs slowly over his palm—again and again, like a nervous tic.
“Because if word got out . . . it wouldn’t have just ended my father’s reign. It would have fractured the realm. The Fire Clan couldn’t afford a scandal tied to shadow magics—especially not with the Shadeheart’s forces finding cracks in the wards and attacking the borderlands.”
His eyes flick briefly to Valen, then back to me. And for a breath, the room holds still. As if even the bond between us dares not speak.
“So we buried the truth. And when she died—when she finally . . . broke—we let the world believe it was illness.”
He says nothing for a moment.
Then, softer: “It wasn’t a lie. Not entirely.”
Thane’s voice drops even lower, rough with something that sounds like grief wrapped in shame.
“About six months into the madness, she started wielding the Shadow Element.”
He doesn’t look at me this time. His gaze drifts past us, fixed on something far away—something only he can see.
“I don’t know if she meant to. If it was a choice. It just . . . started happening.”
A breath. Measured. Barely held together.
“That’s when it got worse. When more of her slipped away. The woman who raised me—the one who sang lullabies when I couldn’t sleep, who taught me how to listen before I spoke—was gone. And something darker began to take her place.”
His fingers twitch. Then lace back together, tighter this time.
“Shadows would curl from her fingers like black smoke. Sometimes they came when she was awake. Sometimes . . . when she was sleeping. I remember watching them drift across the floor like they had minds of their own. Watching them rise up the walls while she whispered to things no one else could see.”
A beat. Longer, heavier.
“I was eighteen.”
The age pulls at a thread in my memory. Familiar but out of reach.
Eighteen.
It clicks into place. The age. The timing. Kastiel.
Thane’s older brother. The one who died in battle. The one he rarely speaks of. Thane was eighteen and he saw it happen.
The bond pulses—sharp and sudden—like it’s catching up to my thoughts. Like it feels the realization slam into me.
Thane’s eyes snap to mine. He feels it too. He’s reading me—really reading me. And I know he sees it in my expression.
The connection. The ache.
He glances at Valen. Just once. Then back to me. His gaze drops. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than before.
“One year to the day that Kastiel died . . . ” A breath. “ . . . my mother jumped off a tower in the middle of the night.”
The words land like stone. Plain. Irrevocable.
And shattering. For a second, I can almost hear it—the sound of a body hitting stone.
And the thought makes bile burn the back of my throat.
My mother died suddenly, but she was still my mother in her heart and mind.
His died slowly, and was no longer the person who raised Thane. Both gone too soon.
My heart squeezes in my chest. I try to school my features into something calm, steady—something Thane can lean on. But the bond is surging again. Thick with memory. With grief that isn’t entirely his.
And Thane’s eyes—his eyes are shining now. He’s holding my gaze like it’s the only thing keeping him from splintering.
His voice, when it comes again, is hoarse. Barely above a whisper.
“We can’t be sure. There’s no official record of it. But . . . ” He trails off, then clears his throat softly. “ . . . the timing of the curse awakening in my mother—and Kastiel’s death—happening on the same day?” He shakes his head, jaw tight. “That’s not a coincidence.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement. I turn slightly—Valen.
He lifts his glass. Drinks deep. No hesitation. No words. Just one long swallow—like he’s choking down a truth he’s carried too long. The glass hits the table with a dull, final thud. Valen exhales—long and slow.
Thane clears his throat again. Rough. Shaky. He’s not finished.
I turn back just as he bites his lower lip. Brief. Unthinking. That beautiful mouth, usually so firm with command, now pressed tight against something he’s still trying to hold back.
Then he continues.
“As you both know . . . my father became ill shortly after she died.”
His voice is steadier now, but hollow. An old ache, worn smooth by time but never truly healed.
“The healers called it sadness of the heart. Said his grief had sunk too deep to cure.” He leans back slightly, gaze distant. “My father’s blood is Fire Clan through and through. My mother’s too, though somewhere in her line . . . Shadow Warden blood seeped in. Hidden. Buried.”
He pauses, then meets Valen’s eyes.
“We don’t believe the Shadow Clan was wiped out completely. Some disappeared. Changed names. Married into other clans. Survived.”
His voice softens again. Resignation laced in every syllable.
“Rowena and I are the only ones left in our family still . . . whole.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest, but he does anyway.
“One of us might be next.”
A beat.
“But we don’t know what triggers the curse. It could be grief. Proximity to shadow magics. Bloodline convergence. Or nothing at all.”
He inhales. Deep. Then exhales with puffed cheeks, as if trying to push something heavy out of himself. But it sticks.
You can see it—in the way his shoulders refuse to drop, in the sharp tap of his fingers against his knee.
He’s bracing. There’s more.
I reach for my glass again, lifting it with both hands this time. The whiskey burns down my throat. I don’t flinch. This time I welcome the sting.
Because whatever’s coming next . . . it’s not just history. It’s his future. Our present.
My reality.
Thane’s gaze slides to mine, slow and deliberate.
“A couple of days after I first started feeling the bond . . . ” he begins. His voice cracks—rough now, like the words fight him on the way out. “ . . . I felt something else stirring.”
His eyes stay on me. Watching. Measuring. Waiting to see if I flinch.
“I figured it was just the bond. The connection. New magics waking in my body. Strange sensations. Flickers of something I couldn’t name.”
He swallows hard.
“It made sense. You are the Spiritborn. Everything about this was new. Unpredictable.”
A pause.
“But then . . . one day . . . ”
His voice dips. Low. Ragged.
“Shadows curled from my fingers.”
Silence.
“And I knew.”
He doesn’t have to explain. The air changes around the words and the world narrows to this moment. My hand tightens around the glass until it aches, until I’m afraid it will shatter in my grip.
“I knew the curse had awakened in me.”
The bond pulses. Hard. Sharp. Like it feels the words as much as I do. Thane’s jaw tightens. Not with anger. With fear.
“I think . . . maybe the bond woke it. Reached into something buried so deep I didn’t feel it before. And pulled it to the surface.”
He looks away then, like he can’t bear to see my reaction. But I feel it. Through the bond. Through the silence.
He’s terrified.
Not just of the magics. But of what it might mean for me. For us.
And then Thane looks at me. Really looks.
What’s in his eyes steals the breath from my lungs. A sorrow carved so deep it doesn’t bleed anymore. It just sits there. Heavy. Unspoken.
“I was afraid,” he says quietly. “Afraid of what it meant for you—if we share this bond . . . and the curse in me now. I saw what it did to my mother. I watched it take her mind piece by piece. And when I felt it stir in me—I knew I couldn’t let you be anywhere near it.”
His voice catches. Just slightly. But I hear it.
“I’m still afraid.”
He drops his gaze for a moment, then lifts it again, and this time it’s all there. Everything he’s held back.
“Fuck.”
The word slips out—low, rough, torn from somewhere deep.
“That’s why I tried to walk away, to put space between us. I thought maybe if I pulled away—if I kept you at arm’s length—that maybe I could protect you . . . from what’s in me.”
His throat works, like the words cost him.
“But I can’t.”
His voice breaks, soft and rough and full of ruin.
“I can’t breathe without you.”
The silence that follows is heavy. Sacred. A truth neither of us dares to move through.
Then—
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep this from you . . . that I wasn’t stronger.”
I see it now. All the weight he’s carried, everything he’s fought to bury just to keep me safe. He’s finally letting me see it.
This isn’t weakness. It’s the bravest thing he’s ever done.
His next words are barely breath.
“I know I’m selfish . . . ” He swallows, his eyes locked on mine, pained but unflinching. “ . . . for still wanting you anyway.”
The bond hums, echoing his confession, like it refuses to break.
And suddenly, I feel it. In my bones. My blood. How much it’s cost him to carry this alone. How much more it would’ve cost him to let me go.
He’s still looking at me. And there’s nothing guarded in his face anymore. No mask. No distance. Just raw, unfiltered truth—laid bare between us.
“That’s why I went to the capital,” he says softly. “I had to speak with Rowena. And Sera—her wife knows too.” He hesitates, the bond between us pulling taut with emotion. “I needed time. To think. To figure out what to do. How to protect you. How to be near you without risking everything.”
His voice dips lower.
“But even then . . . I wasn’t strong enough to stay away from you, Amara.”