CHAPTER 34 #2
“At first,” he continues, voice rough, “you were the answer. The cure. The woman every cursed king before me had searched for and never found. I told myself that was all you could be, because anything else was too dangerous.”
His gaze catches mine, and there is so much pain there I almost hate him for making me see it. “Then you became the first thing I ever wanted for myself.”
I stop breathing.
He leans forward slightly, but he does not touch me. “You are mine, Lyra.”
The words strike deep, too deep. Because I am.
My fingers tighten around the ember, and around his hand.
“I failed you,” he says, voice cracking.
“You were never a possession—but I can never not see you as mine, Lyra. Gods, I have no right to say it. I know that. But you are mine in the way my heart no longer remembers how to beat without answering yours. Mine in the way your absence tore through me worse than the curse ever could. Mine in the way I would burn every crown, every throne, every cursed remnant of my bloodline if it meant you looked at me and did not see the man who failed you.”
My tears fall then. I can’t stop them. I don’t even try.
“You haven't lost me, Thorin. But you should have asked me, when you first brought me here. You should have just asked. I didn't ask for any of this either—and I would have given the light freely if I knew the truth.”
The words come out quietly and Thorin goes still. Utterly still.
“You should have asked,” I say again, and this time my voice shakes. “Not trained me into exhaustion. Not dragged memories from my mind. Not kissed me and reached into me like you had a right. You should have trusted me enough to ask.”
Understanding hits him like a physical blow.
I see it happen. See the color drain from his face.
See his breath catch. See the exact moment he realizes that the thing his entire bloodline spent centuries searching for had stood in front of him, and might have chosen him, if only he had given her the chance.
“I would have done it. I swear it. If you hadn't kidnapped me,” I whisper, trying to soften the words.
His expression collapses.
“Lyra—”
“I would have.” The confession tears free, raw and humiliating and true. “Not because of your prophecy. Not because of your kingdom.” I press the ember to my chest as if it can keep me from falling apart. “I would have done it because I am yours.”
The world doesn’t move. But Thorin breaks.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Something in his eyes simply gives way, and suddenly the man before me looks less like a king and more like someone who has survived the seven realms of hell only to be destroyed by one sentence.
“I will fix this.”
For a moment I'm confused, because I don’t understand.
The goddess simply stands there, watching, as if this were only the shape her intervention was always going to take.
The dark veins beneath his skin are moving, pulsing in time with something I cannot hear.
For the first time, I understand that the curse is not simply inside him.
It is woven through him. Not armor. Not a weapon. Not even sickness.
A second heart. If he tears it out—
My breath catches. “No. No, Thorin!” The words leave me in a jumble of pleading.
Thorin looks up and there’s peace in his face. Not happiness, but something like clarity. And it terrifies me more than his shadows ever did.
“I love you, Lyra Tarethyn. You would have made a wonderful queen.”
“No,” I say again, because I know that look. I’m in his thoughts now—he lets me in, no shield in place to keep me out. I see that he thinks death is easier than living with what he’s done. I know he’ll mistake sacrifice for absolution, because sacrifice at least gives pain a purpose.
But I can’t lose him. I won’t.
His mouth curves faintly. Sad. Tender. The kind of smile reserved for goodbyes.
“You asked me once what I wanted,” he says.
My throat closes.
“I lied.”
“Thorin.”
“I want you,” he says, and the words are so simple they ruin me.
“Not your magic. Not your light. Not what you can do for my kingdom. You. I want your fury and your sharp tongue and the way you look at me as if you are one insult away from murder even when you are frightened. I want every piece of you. I want a future I do not deserve.”
His eyes glisten.
“But wanting you was never the same as having the right to keep you.”
Onyx goes rigid. He knows. Gods. He knows too.
“Thorin, no. Brother—NO!”
I don’t know where he came from, but I can’t focus on him now.
Thorin turns his hand palm-up. Shadows coil over his fingers, darker than night, but beneath them something burns.
Not gold. Not like mine. A small black ember pulses beneath his skin, half-buried in the curse, the remnant of the First King's theft carried through blood and bone and centuries of kings who never learned how to let go.
The dark ember. The curse’s heart.
“Stop, brother,” Onyx says. “Please. In this life and the next, we swore it. You can’t do this to me.”
There’s no command in his voice now. Only fear. “Think of our oath,” he pleads.
Thorin doesn’t look at him; he doesn’t have to. Resolve is written all over his face.
“If I ask you to save my kingdom, the question is already poisoned.” His gaze stays on mine. “If I ask you to save me, it is worse. You deserve a choice that does not come with my hands around your throat, no matter how gently I think I am holding you.”
The shadows rise around him. Not outward. Inward. Wrapping around his chest, his arms, his throat. I push myself toward him, panic surging through me. “Don't do this. Thorin! Don’t do this!”
For the first time since Illurine appeared, his smile almost reaches his eyes. There is something devastatingly beautiful about it. The man has been difficult to tolerate from the beginning, but now he is about to rip the heart right out of my chest.
“I choose you,” he whispers.
The shadows plunge into his chest, quicker than I can react to stop them.
Thorin arches forward with a sound that tears through me.
Not a scream. Worse. A broken, strangled thing dragged from the deepest part of him as he reaches into himself and rips, both hands pressed to his chest. Between his fingers, the dark ember flickers, small and terrible, pulsing weakly in the air.
Black light spills across his skin, then drains away.
He looks at me one last time. Not at the ember. Not at Illurine.
Me.
Always me.
“Even if you don’t choose me,” he says. Then he opens his hand and the dark ember falls to the ground between us as Thorin collapses.
"Thorin!" I scream his name into the light, into the dying echo of my own power, into the silence that answers me. “Thorin! You do not get to do this. You don’t get to leave me like this!”
Onyx catches him before his head strikes the earth. For a second, he simply stares down at his brother as if the universe has finally committed the one cruelty he never prepared for.
Then his composure breaks. Not with tears. Not with begging. With my name.
“Lyra.”
Just that. But there is so much in it that I nearly fall apart completely. Something inside me tears loose.
Thorin’s eyes go black—not the endless, molten black of the Shadow King, but something worse. A void with nothing behind it. And then, in the space of a single heartbeat, the black drains away entirely, leaving his eyes a pale, lifeless gray. No silver. No warmth. No him.
The faint pulse of our bond is gone, and I stare, because I don't know what to do. I look to the Goddess to plead for help, but she only looks from him to me, sadly. It’s as if the entire continent feels the loss of its king—and its curse.
I feel the loss much more deeply—the king that was my mate…
.the space that he alone occupied… is now empty. I won’t recover from this.
I’m hovering over his body, screaming at him to come back. But I know he won’t wake. I know I’ll never see those silver eyes again.
“Wake up. Wake up. THORIN!”
I gently pound his chest, scream his name, and gods—why won't he wake up? My fists hit the ground hard enough to jar my teeth, my hands scrabbling uselessly at the stone, at his sleeve, at anything that might anchor me to a world that has just tilted off its axis.
NO. No, no, no. He’s not gone. I refuse to accept it.
How?
Why?
How could you do this to me, Thorin? Why would you leave me! Why—
Thorin.
Please!
“Thorin,” I say, tears streaming down my face as I cradle his head in my lap. He’s unbelievably cold. The touch confirms he’s no longer in this realm. But I knew that as soon as I looked into his lifeless eyes.
“Thorin. Please.” I try to call him back. Damn it, he's so stubborn. Just wake up.
Wake up. Wake up for me, Thorin.
Come back. Come back to me. Come back for me.
The thoughts won’t stop. They loop, mindless and frantic, drowning out everything else.
How could he do this to me? How could he leave me like this?