40. Teacups and Treason #3
She races out into the courtyard. Dorian and Soren have already gone, thank the gods. Rookwood and Ariella were still readying a carriage.
Selene doesn’t wait for them, doesn’t wait for anyone. She swings her foot into the first available horse and gallops off towards the mountains.
Selene prays as she hurries to the temple, her heart hammering against her ribs, silently pleading to any god that will listen. Not for herself, but for him. For Dorian.
Always for him.
She finds the horses abandoned in a glade not far from the temple and races down the path, her lungs burning, sides splitting.
Dorian is still alive when she reaches them, standing at the altar, his skin pale beneath the last of the sun’s light.
Soren stands beside him, a hand outstretched as if prepared to catch him at any moment.
Relief and terror war in Selene’s chest. They’ve made it, but they don’t have long .
“I feel fine,” Dorian murmurs as she flings herself at him. His attempt at a smirk is weak, barely there. “A little light-headed, maybe. What’s going on?”
“It’s my mother,” she rushes out, words tripping over themselves in her haste. “She’s behind everything. Everything. The Duke was in league with her. She’s the instigator. She poisoned your tea.”
Dorian’s brow furrows, his dazed eyes struggling to focus. Then realisation dawns. “ LD ,” he breathes. “Lady Duskbriar. I didn’t think… I never checked the wives.”
“It’s dozens of them,” she says. “I saw the correspondence. We know now.” She grips his hand tightly. “Next time, we’ll get her.”
“Next time.” He exhales sharply, and then his knees buckle. Soren catches him, lowering him carefully onto the temple floor. Dorian grits his teeth, his body trembling with the effort of staying conscious. He turns his gaze to Soren. “Could I have a moment with my wife?”
Soren hesitates, then gives a short nod. “Of course.” He steps away but remains close, watchful.
Selene cradles Dorian’s face in her hands, searching his eyes for some reassurance that he isn’t slipping away from her. He grunts, his lips twitching in the ghost of a smile. “This isn’t the first time I’ve died in your arms.”
Tears blur her vision. “Well,” she chokes out, “it better be the last.”
Dorian’s fingers twitch, weakly curling a lock of her hair around them. It is all he has the strength to do. “No,” he murmurs. “One more time. Fifty years from now.”
“Next time, I’m going first.”
His grip tightens ever so slightly. “Please don’t leave me in a world without you in it. Not again.”
Selene presses a kiss to his knuckles, her tears slipping onto his skin. “In the next life, we’ll go together.”
He nods, wincing through a shudder of pain. “In the next life.” His breathing hitches. “If something goes wrong… if I don’t remember this time— ”
“You will,” she assures him, stroking his cheek. “But if you don’t, I will tell you. And the other way around. You have to tell me, too.”
His lips part slightly. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
His grip on her hand loosens. His expression flickers with fear, the kind he never lets show. “I’m scared,” he admits in a whisper. “All this time… especially now. I don’t… I don’t want to go. I don’t want to…”
Tears trail down his cheeks. His breathing grows more laboured. Selene presses her hand to his chest, as if she can fix the damage with touch alone, to draw out pain. This can’t be happening. She can’t lose him again…
Dorian’s gaze glazes. His eyes fall away from her, focusing on the Goddess’ statue. “It’s you,” he murmurs. “Selene. Selene, it’s always been you…”
His breath stills. The light fades from his eyes.
Selene freezes, her own breath caught in her throat. The silence that follows is deafening. Her vision blurs, her body numb, but she still feels the warmth seeping from him, the last traces of his presence fading into the cold.
Soren moves beside her. He has seen this before, but even he looks shaken. Selene doesn’t speak. Can’t even move. She’s never watched anyone die before, and this is Dorian. He can’t be dead. Never mind that she’s changing this, that this will be a dream tomorrow—
It’s real now. How can he not be breathing in a world where she is?
She strokes his cheek, trying to press warmth into him, to coax him into life like a newborn kitten. She takes his hand and puts it against her chest.
Wake up, wake up, she wants to say. You can have my heart.
The words don’t come.
Tears tremble down her cheeks. This isn’t over. She’ll get him back. But this life they have together, everything they’ve done, the people she’s met…
All that is gone. All that is over .
She lowers Dorian’s hand to his hollow chest, and holds out her free one towards Soren.
“Have you got a dagger?”
He hesitates before offering her a small vial instead. “Poison,” he says quietly. “I always keep a couple for emergencies.”
That’s better, she thinks. A dagger would have been messy. She’s not sure she would have had the strength. She’d have had to ask him for help.
“You’re coming after?” she asks, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Of course.”
Selene stares at the vial. For a brief, terrifying moment, fear claws at her chest. The finality of it.
The unknown. The fear that it won’t work this time, that the goddess’ power has finally been exhausted.
But the thought of facing a world without Dorian is far worse than the possibility of death.
Her fingers tighten around the vial. She uncorks it, closes her eyes, and swallows.
Selene barely feels the vial slip from her fingers as she collapses onto Dorian’s chest. The last thing she hears is the hollow sound of his heart. She will hear it beat again. She swears it.
She closes her eyes, and follows him into the dark.