Even If It Destroys Me
SERAPHAE
Iwas going to be the reason Twilight fell.
A kingdom that rose from ash and forced the world to take notice would fall because of me.
I’d been prepared for the worst when I walked into the throne room.
After what had happened at the front gates, I had gone back to my room and run through every possible outcome of the trial against me. I constantly came to the same conclusion. I would not be allowed to remain in Twilight.
The king would learn about the bond. There was no way around that either. They would not execute me while I was bonded to Caelan, but they would once the bond broke. I had accepted that and was ready for it.
What I hadn’t prepared for was this.
My pulse drummed behind my ears as I stared at Riven’s back.
I hadn’t noticed when he moved. One moment, I was waiting for my arrest. The next, he was simply there, standing between me and the six Crown guards who had their swords drawn.
There was no hesitation, only certainty as he gripped the hilt of his blade. No sign that he had even considered the consequences, or perhaps he had and chose to accept them.
“Riven,” I breathed.
He didn’t look at me.
My pulse had turned into a ringing in my ears that drowned out the room. Twilight guards moved in a heartbeat later. Twilight against Crown. Black against the gilded. Darkness and light. Two kingdoms with a human woman and a captain of the guard between them.
I looked at Caelan, who looked at Riven. A quiet understanding passed between them.
If Crown was not able to arrest me today, they would return. When they did, it would be with an army. And I would not be the only person they would take.
No.
I had to do something. Anything. I had—
The doors flung open with a loud groan.
Every head in the room spun.
Mallas walked in like a man who had been riding since dawn and didn't care the slightest. His white hair was windswept. His robes disheveled and dusted. His chest rose at the same rate as my pulse. Rapid and unrelenting.
He crossed the room without looking at Aldric Vaene. Without looking at me, or Caelan, or Riven, or the guards from two kingdoms who were one second from crossing a line that should not be crossed. He walked straight up to the platform where the chair Vaene had been sitting on stood and sat.
We all stared at him.
The Twilight guards hadn’t gotten a chance to draw their swords, hands still on the hilts. Crown guards didn't lower their blades that were still pointed at Riven.
“Prince Mallas,” Vaene’s voice cut clean across the heavy silence. “The verdict has already—”
“The verdict,” Mallas interrupted. “Will be determined by the judge named for this trial.” He directed this at Vaene. “Which will be me.”
Aldric Vaene, who was Crown’s appointed arbitrator and had spent the last hour constructing his verdict, gaped at him.
The room waited, silence stretching taut once more.
Vaene held Mallas’s gaze for a moment before finally stepping to the side. With a wave, the Crown guards sheathed their blades and took a single step back. They didn't return to the wall.
Caelan sat back down, his posture easing a fraction. He called back the Twilight guards, who returned to the walls with practiced discipline as if they had never left them in the first place.
Riven shifted his stance, but he didn't move away. He glanced at me over his shoulder. His dark eyes moved over me as if taking inventory, then looked away.
A clerk stepped up to the dais and handed the case documents to Mallas.
Mallas accepted them and read through them with the focused attention of someone who was not affected by the dozens of eyes watching him do it. He took his time with it as the room began to move.
The people who were standing sat back down. The entire room gathered themselves and continued as if we weren’t a breath away from making history.
“The proceeding is acknowledged,” he said. “The imprisonment recommendation, however.” He looked at Vaene. “Is wrong.”
The room exhaled, and murmurs passed as quickly as they went silent.
I didn't move.
Mallas let the room settle before he continued.
“The Crown's concern is the stability of untamed magic in Primoria. This is legitimate. Twilight's concern is the safety of its citizens. Also legitimate.” He turned a page without looking up. “These concerns are not in conflict with each other. They are, in fact, served by the same resolution.”
He set the documents down.
“Sera’s presence functions as a catalyst for the prince's connection to the untamed. The solution to a catalyst problem is the removal of it.” He faced the room. “Not imprisonment.”
His eyes landed on me briefly before moving to Caelan.
“Sera committed no crime,” Mallas continued.
“She has not acted against the Crown. The documented record of her time in Twilight shows the opposite.” He folded his hands.
“Imprisoning a human woman who has committed no crime is something Thalvarn will write histories about.” His voice stayed neutral.
“Imprisoning an innocent woman from Thalvarn, with whom we maintain a treaty, undoes the peace we built.” He looked at Vaene directly, unimpressed.
“Imprisonment achieves nothing that banishment doesn’t also achieve, and it costs us considerably more. ”
Banishment.
The murmur changed register. I kept my eyes on Mallas.
He picked up a stylus.
“The verdict of this proceeding is as follows,” he said.
“Seraphae, subject of Thalvarn, is hereby banished from the territories of Primoria effective immediately. The banishment stands unless the subject can demonstrate by lawful means recognized by Primoria that her presence no longer constitutes a threat to the realm.” He set the stylus down.
“The imprisonment recommendation is rejected.”
Nobody spoke.
It was more favorable than imprisonment in Crown. But distance was still impossible. The furthest I had been able to get was halfway through the wildlands. Neutral lands. Out of Primoria, but not yet across Thalvarn borders.
I would have to stay in the wildlands. Where there was nothing but trees and the occasional Hollow creature that slipped past the borders. I would not be imprisoned. Caelan would be safe. The bond remained a secret.
This was the best outcome we could have hoped for.
I didn’t look at Caelan, but I could feel his eyes on me. I couldn’t look at him. If I did, the careful composure I wore would fail. I very deliberately didn't look at him and stared straight ahead into Riven’s back.
My chest ached and the air burned my lungs, but I stood there with my spine straight, chin lifted.
That day in the courtyard, I had wanted to stay.
Today, I had to look like I wanted to leave.
The throne room had emptied in pieces.
Vaene had left first after he gathered his documents with the air of a man who had lost something and intended to report it very thoroughly to his king. He looked back at the room once, grumbled to himself, and said nothing further to anyone.
After that, the councilmen moved, then the house members, until the room drained of people and there was only us.
Brie reached out for me first. She didn’t say anything and pulled me into her arms. I shut my eyes and let myself hold her.
Thought of all the times we had spent day drinking in the courtyard while I listened to her half-hearted complaints about Maelor.
She smelled like the perfume she always wore—sweet and floral.
It made the ache in my chest worse before it could get better.
Maelor had stood behind her with his arms crossed and his jaw set. “Banished is better than Crown custody. That’s a win.” His voice had come out rougher than usual. He cleared his throat and stared up at the ceiling.
It wasn’t exactly a win, but it was an alternative that we should have been grateful for. I should be grateful for it.
Riven hadn’t come to me. He had gone straight to Caelan as he descended from the dais. Whatever passed between them was quiet and brief. Riven had nodded once and left the throne room without a single word or a glance back.
Mallas stood last. He glanced my way as he walked by, a look I couldn’t quite read on his face. It was anything but warm. Then he inclined his head to Caelan once and left.
I sat in the courtyard for the rest of the day. Long enough that the dark stone beneath me had warmed from my body.
It was the last day of spring and it had decided to end with rain. My dress was already soaked through, fabric clinging to my skin. I didn't care. The cold did nothing to distract me from my thoughts.
I rolled Caelan's pendant between my fingers and listened to the rain.
Someone out there had known Caelan reached for his magic at Mirror Lake, and that knowledge had spread to Crown. Fear altered people in quiet and irreversible ways. This was either a very unfortunate series of events or someone had planned it elaborately.
The bond could not be broken.
Primoria had banished me.
The mastermind was still out there.
I would always be leverage until the bond broke. I refused to be leverage. If the bond wouldn’t break because we were unwilling, then we had to become willing.
Perhaps being banished was a silver lining after all. Distance was what we needed to learn to let go.
The thought came and took root. I pressed a hand to my throat and squeezed my eyes shut. A long, shuddering breath did nothing to the ache sitting in my chest.
The sound of footsteps behind me came and went twice before he decided to approach.
Caelan stood in front of me, crown gone, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him.
The composure he always wore like armor was gone.
His shoulders carried the weight of a man who had fought for something and come back without it.
Hair wet in the rain, droplets falling from where it lay over his brows.
His eyes found mine and in them were too many emotions all at once.
He didn't speak immediately. His expression twisted into something gut-wrenchingly painful.