34. Fractured
Chapter thirty-four
Fractured
The next two days crawl by, each hour stretching endlessly as I try to busy myself with training, sparring, walking aimlessly through the stronghold, but nothing settles the unease twisting inside me.
Sleep becomes a distant luxury. Every time I close my eyes, my mind conjures images I don’t want to see: villages burning, Oberon standing amidst the wreckage, his shadows writhing at his feet like living nightmares.
By the time word spreads that Oberon has returned, I am already on edge, tension coiled so tightly in my body that I think I might snap.
I hear the murmurs first, whispers of his arrival, of the heavy presence that follows him into the stronghold.
The way some of the Fae avoid looking directly at him, how the room seems colder in his wake.
I find him in his chambers, standing near the window with his back turned to me. His broad shoulders are rigid, his head tilted slightly, as if he senses my presence before I even speak.
I swallow hard, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Oberon.”
Slowly, he turns, shadows curling at his feet. His gaze meets mine, storm-dark and heavy with something I can’t quite name.
I clench my fists. “We need to talk.”
I storm forward, every ounce of restraint I have left crumbling beneath the weight of my fury. “You lied to me.” My voice comes out sharp, cracking against the walls.
Oberon doesn’t flinch. He just stands there.
I take another step, my breath coming faster, heat rising under my skin. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you didn’t lead those attacks. That your shadows weren’t seen—weren’t felt—tearing through those villages.” My voice breaks, but I don’t care.
He holds my stare but says nothing.
“Tell me this is just another rumor. Another way for people to turn against you. Tell me something, anything—gods, Oberon, just SAY SOMETHING!”
Still, nothing, not a single word.
He just stands there, watching me with those ebony-dark eyes, his expression unreadable. After what feels like an eternity, the corners of his lips curl just slightly, just barely into something hollow, something so wrong, a broken smile.
I stagger back, as if he has struck me. “That’s it?” I choke out. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”
His chest rises and falls with a breath too slow, too heavy. “What do you want me to say, Lyra?” His voice is quiet, wrecked.
“I want you to tell me you didn’t do this!” I shout, my hands trembling. “I want you to give me a reason to believe in you! But you won’t. Because you can’t.”
His throat bobs, his hands curling into fists as he looks away from me.
Rage and heartbreak war inside me, clawing at my ribs. I feel like I am drowning in the silence between us. I shake my head, voice trembling now. “You promised me. You swore to me you weren’t like him.” My nails bite into my palms. “But you are, aren’t you?”
Oberon flinches slightly at my words, and his shadows stir violently, writhing as if they feel something he won’t let himself show.
I let out a bitter laugh, blinking hard.
“You don’t even care enough to fight for yourself.
” I take another step back, but he still doesn’t move toward me.
Doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t say a damn thing.
I turn away first because I can’t look at him anymore.
Can’t stand that hollow, ruined expression carved into his face.
I start to leave, my chest burning, my mind screaming at me to run, to forget, to pretend I never cared in the first place.
I barely make it three steps before his voice cuts through the air, raw and strained. “You know I have to stay in his good graces.”
I freeze.
My heart slams against my ribs, anger and pain still warring inside me.
“This is the only way this works.” His voice is quieter this time, like the weight of the words is pressing down on him, grinding him into the ground.
I don’t turn around, I don’t walk away either.
Oberon lets out a ragged breath. “I had to prove myself to him. If I hadn’t, if I refused, if I hesitated . . .” He runs an uneven hand through his hair, trying to find the right words. “He would’ve seen right through me. Then all of this would have fallen apart.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my breath shaking.
“I did what was necessary,” he continues, voice small beneath something fractured.
I turn, slowly, cautiously, as if I am afraid of what I’ll see. When I meet his eyes, it isn’t the person I yelled at moments ago, the one who stood silent and impassive while my world cracked apart. He looks like someone else entirely.
His hands are clenched at his sides, his jaw locked so tight I think it might break. But it is his eyes that undo me.
They aren’t cold. They aren’t distant.
They are tormented. Like he is still standing in those burning villages, still hearing the screams, still feeling the blood on his hands, whether it is his or not.
My anger wavers. I take a step back toward him, arms still crossed over my chest, like I’m not ready to let go of my fury completely, even as I feel it slipping, melting into something softer.
“Oberon . . .” I whisper, hating how soft my voice sounds.
Hate that I am letting myself feel his pain like it was my own.
He lets out a bitter, breathless laugh, running a hand through his hair.
“You think I don’t hate myself for this?
” His voice is hoarse. “You think I don’t wake up every godsdamned day wondering how much of me is him?
How much of my father is buried inside me, waiting to crawl its way to the surface? ”
I suck in a breath, my chest aching with the sheer devastation in his voice.
“This was the only way,” he says, it isn’t an excuse.
It isn’t even a justification.
It is a confession, a desperate, broken plea for understanding. “If I didn’t prove myself to him, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the pieces from falling apart. And I need them to hold, Lyra. I need them to hold.”
I stare at him, my own anger fading into something unsteady, something fragile. I still hate what he did. Still hate that he let his shadows be seen, that he let his name be whispered alongside destruction and fear.
But I can see it now, the weight of it, the cost. The way it is eating him alive from the inside out.
Without thinking, I close the distance between us.
Oberon sucks in a sharp breath, his entire body going still as I reach for him.
My fingers brush his wrist first, hesitant, testing.
When he doesn’t pull away, I press my palm against his forearm, feeling the tension coil beneath his skin.
“I hate this,” I admit, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I hate that you had to do this.”
His eyes meet mine, dark and tormented, like he is waiting for me to say the words he is too afraid to voice. “I understand.”
A shuddering breath escapes him, something inside him fracturing at my words.
I can feel the heat radiating from his skin, his heartbeat pulsing just beneath the surface, matching mine in a frantic rhythm. The tension between us hangs thick, a fragile thread of unspoken understanding tethering us together in the rawest of moments.
For a long, heavy second, neither of us moves.
His body is as rigid as stone. I can feel the weight of his pain in the way he stands, like he is holding himself together by sheer force of will.
It mirrors the way I feel the ache in my chest, the war inside me between anger and a deep, undeniable pull toward him.
I close my eyes for a moment, my hand still pressed against his arm, in that fleeting silence, everything in me breaks open.
“I hate this,” I whisper again, this time for myself, for the way I can’t untangle the knots in my own heart.
“I hate that you feel like you have to carry all this. I hate that you feel so fucking alone in it.” My words hang in the air, fragile and broken.
It feels like the dam inside him cracked too, because in the next breath, Oberon is there, closer than he has been before, his hands reaching for me like he can’t stop himself, like he can’t bear the distance anymore.
Before I can even register what is happening, he pulls me into him, his arms locking around me with an urgency that catches my breath in my throat.
I gasp, the warmth of him enveloping me completely. His scent, that familiar mix of cedarwood and rain, surrounds me like a balm, but beneath it, there is something sharper, something raw. Something broken.
I can’t stop the tremor that shakes through me. “Oberon,” I murmur, my voice catching.
I bury my face into his chest, inhaling him deeply, letting it fill the empty spaces inside me. I can feel his pulse beneath my cheek, and it reminds me that he is still here, still him, even if his heart feels like it has been splintered into a thousand pieces.
He holds me tighter, his breath ragged in my ear, his lips brushing the side of my face as he whispers my name. “Lyra,” he breathes, his voice broken and trembling. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted you to see me like this.”
His words are a confession, a vulnerability, so deep it makes my chest ache.
“Stop,” I whisper, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes. “Don’t apologize for this. Don’t apologize for what you had to do.”
He shakes his head, guilt and pain clouding his eyes. “I should have found another way. I should have been stronger.”
“You’re already strong,” I say softly, cupping his face in my hands. “You’re just . . . you. You’re just a male who’s been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for too long.” I lean in then, slowly, gently, as if giving him a choice, a chance to pull away if he wants to.
He doesn’t. Instead, he leans in until his lips meet mine with a desperation that steals the breath from my lungs. It is messy, urgent, and raw, the kiss of two souls unraveling in the face of all the pain they have yet to confront.
His hands are everywhere, on my back, on my face, in my hair, pulling me closer as if he is afraid that the moment we share will slip away if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
I can feel it, the raw emotion, the need, the heartbreak. He kisses me like he is trying to pour every word he didn’t say, every apology he hasn’t been able to express, into that single moment.
And I kiss him back, with everything.
Because in that kiss, I understand him more than I ever have before.
I feel the weight of his guilt, his self-loathing, and the need to protect me, even if it means losing more of himself. I break away just enough to breathe, my forehead resting against his, my hands tracing the lines of his jaw.
His eyes are closed, his breath coming in shallow gasps, as if he is afraid to open them and see the truth of what is happening between us.
I can feel the heat radiating from his skin, his heartbeat pulsing just beneath the surface, matching mine in a frantic rhythm.
I don’t pull away. I don’t let go. “Let me hold it with you,” I whisper, echoing the words he once said to me in the depths of my own pain.
“Just like you did for me. You don’t have to carry this alone. ”
His eyes flutter open, and there is a vulnerability in them that makes my heart ache. “You’re already carrying so much,” he murmurs, his voice barely above a breath. “I can’t ask you to carry this, too.”
I am not asking. “I’m not giving you a choice,” I say, my voice firm yet gentle.
“We’re in this together. Maybe we always have been, maybe this is how it was always supposed to be.
” With a gentle pull, I kiss him again, this time slower, deeper, as if we are both trying to piece ourselves together in the warmth of the moment.