Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alaya
My breath mists in front of my face as we step inside. Above, Faelights flicker in the thorny chandeliers, their orange light barely reaching the floor beneath them. Beyond their feeble glow, the vast chamber dissolves into darkness so complete I can’t make out where walls meet ceiling.
Kiernan’s eyes find mine. His jaw tightens as he reaches for my hands, his cool fingers enveloping mine.
“We need to break the Marriage Bond, Alaya.” His voice cracks slightly.
“My father—he showed me something in those translated pages. A passage that said the Bond can be used as a weapon against us. That as long as it exists, he can control us both through it.” He swallows hard.
“We need to sever it to protect you. To protect us.”
His words start a deep, agonizing tremor in my stomach—a hollow, churning knot.
“Break the Marriage Bond? No, Kiernan!” My voice rises. “Is this because of what your father told you? About my time with the Equitae?” The quiet words are swallowed by the lengthening shadows. “Please, let me explain.”
“I don’t need an explanation.” His face is tense, but his eyes are pleading. “This isn’t about that.”
“I need you to understand—”
“I understand,” he says, cutting me off, but there’s no anger in it, only desperation. “I understand everything. And I’m trying to save us.”
Angry tears rise in me. “No, Kiernan, you don’t understand!”
He draws a slow, deep breath and exhales, his shoulders dropping. “I knew everything already, Alaya. I felt it all.”
His words didn’t just hang in the air—they anchored me to the spot, heavy and suffocating.
My mouth opens, but only a choked “What?” escapes as my mind struggles to form words, my eyes darting to his for any sign that this is some cruel joke.
“I felt everything. Every emotion, every touch, every strike. Everything.” There is no anger, no disgust, just a quiet acceptance. “Through our Bond.”
That he had silently endured with me—everything that I had locked away in my heart to protect him—made the floor feel like it was falling away.
My knees hit the stone floor with a crack that barely registers as I fall. Something inside my chest splinters, sending jagged shards through my lungs. I open my mouth to breathe, but a sound escapes instead, high and broken.
“I don’t understand. I lost the Bond as soon as I entered Heartwood,” I cry.
“You’re a Desolate. Without close proximity to a Gift, your Bond grows weaker, but mine doesn’t.” He kneels before me, taking my hands. “It doesn’t change how much I love you. When the war is lost, you protect whatever is left. I know your heart still sings to mine.”
He takes my hand and presses it to his heart, where it thuds below my palm.
“Do you feel our song, Alaya? Any echo of you keeps me from the silence. But while we have this Bond, we will never know what is real or not. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to make my own choices.”
The tears begin to fall again in heavy, hot streams, not the gentle flow of sorrow, but the desperate, scalding rush of a person completely breaking.
“I’m a nobody, worthless. I’m less than nothing. I tore your love to pieces and scattered it in the wind like ashes. How can you possibly love me now? How can you even stand to look at me after everything I’ve done?”
“Do you love me, Alaya?”
“Yes, but—”
“Do. You. Love. Me?” He shouts, the words slicing through the silence, bouncing off the stone walls and returning as hollow echoes from the shadowed ceiling high above.
“I love you,” I cry. “Even in all of that chaos, I thought of you always. You were what kept me strong, made me realise how rare our love truly is and that it was worth fighting for. Though something changed within me, my love for you was unwavering.”
“You are not a nobody; you are my everything. You ask me how I can love this version of you?” He lifts my chin to look at him. “How can I not? Because every version of you loves me, however unworthy I may be. And I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. Even this.”
He takes both my hands and helps me to my feet.
The doors at the end of the Throne Room open, and Kaleel enters, the white-haired Elder slowly making his way down the black runner that leads to the throne.
“Thanks for coming, Kaleel,” Kiernan greets him, his voice tight.
The Elder’s voice drops to a whisper. “Liff said …” He trails off, his weathered fingers twisting the frayed edge of his sleeve. His eyes dart to mine, then away, the wrinkles around them deepening. “Said I shouldn’t waste a moment. That you needed this done quickly.”
I break Kiernan’s hold on me and back away, stumbling. “Are you going to break it right now?” My voice trembles.
“I can’t take another day with my father having this power over us, Alaya.
” His voice cracks. “He showed me what he could do—how he could use the Bond to hurt you. I won’t let him have that weapon.
I won’t let him twist our love into something he can use against us.
We need to know this is real, that the choices we make are not because of that damn Bond.
” His temper rises now, desperation bleeding through.
“I told you on our wedding night it would always be us. There is no doubt in my mind. But I need to protect you from him. This is the only way.”
Kaleel steps forwards, his shadow falling across us both.
“Your left hands. Palm up.” His voice leaves no room for refusal.
I catch Kiernan’s gaze, and he extends his hand without hesitation, his jaw set but his eyes haunted.
My own fingers tremble as I mirror him. Faelight glints off something golden in Kaleel’s hand—a dagger, small but ornate, its hilt adorned with symbols I don’t recognise.
My breath catches. The blade flashes, and I flinch as cold metal meets flesh.
A crimson bead swells at my fingertip, bright against my pale skin.
Kiernan’s blood already patters onto the stone floor, each drop echoing in the silence as Kaleel tilts the dagger, catching both our bloody essences on its gleaming point.
I swallow hard, my throat betraying a frantic, racing heart. “No—I can’t.” I start to lower my hand.
Kiernan’s other hand flashes out to hold it in place. His fingers are shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but we have to do this.”
“No, Kiernan. Please.” I squirm against him, tears streaming down my face. “Don’t do this. We can find another way.”
“There is no other way.” His voice breaks. “Do it now, Kaleel!”
“Wait—” Kaleel hesitates, his eyes widening as he looks between us. “Are you certain? Once this is done—”
“DO IT!” Kiernan roars.
I feel an intense, searing pain in the palm of my hand as Kaleel draws the blade of the dagger across both of our palms, the golden threads severing with an audible snap that echoes through the vast room.
My palm burns, the searing heat racing up my wrist, snaking through my veins until even my toes tingle with fire.
The doors crash against the stone walls, hinges screaming in protest.
Kiernan whirls towards the sound, and his face drains of all colour. “No. What have you—”
“Well done, son.” The King’s voice climbs slowly, spiking into a harsh, high-pitched cackle that vibrates the air in the room. “You’ve done exactly as I hoped.”
I manage to turn my head. The King looms in the doorway, his thin lips curled upward. My breath catches as my gaze slides to the figure beside him—Quinn, eyes downcast, fingers twitching against the seam of his tunic.
“I’m sorry, Alaya!” Quinn shouts, his voice breaking. “He said he would kill you if I didn’t …”
Something large steps out of the shadows beside him, muscles rippling with each echoing step it takes on the stone floor.
“What have you done?” Kiernan’s voice is barely a whisper, his face going even paler as understanding crashes over him. “Father, what have you—the translation—you lied—”
“I didn’t lie, boy. I simply omitted certain details.
” The King’s smile widens. “The Bond wasn’t a weapon I could use against her.
But breaking it? That was the key all along.
Her Gift, locked away, needed only one thing to be released.
” His eyes gleam with triumph. “The severing of her magical anchor.”
Wait … my Gift?
Without warning, my whole body convulses, and I drop to the floor, the pain so intense I writhe and buckle as it assaults me.
“No.” Kiernan stumbles backwards, his hands shaking violently. “No, I didn’t—I thought I was protecting her—”
Kiernan drops beside me, gathering me into his arms. “Oh Gods, Alaya, what’s wrong?” His voice cracks. “What have I done? What have I done?”
The raw, open agony makes me temporarily unaware of my surroundings, lost in my own private, agonizing hell.
“What the fuck is happening to her?” Kiernan’s voice breaks into a sob. “Father, you said—you told me this would protect her! You said the Bond was the danger!” His arms tighten around me. “Alaya! Gods, Alaya, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought—”
Kaleel’s voice cuts through, sharp with horror. “You told me it was to free them from your influence, Your Majesty. You said nothing of—”
“Silence, you old fool. You’ve served your purpose.”
The ‘somewhere to belong’ Kiernan had woven from those loving touches and heartfelt words was not a home—it was still a cage, a prison.
And he had just locked the door himself, thinking he was setting me free.
The shattering of trust splinters into thousands of piercing shards we have little hope of putting back together.
I close my eyes, and the world behind my lids is not black, but a desolate, blinding white—the complete absence of the future I had finally dared to envision for myself.
Then the pain starts again. I can feel my void filling, swirling with such intense power it burns me from the inside. Then a searing heat down the left side of my face, something writhing under my skin.
“Oh, shit.” The King’s voice cracks. “I … I …” The great King of Thorns, lost for words.