CHAPTER 25 #2
“You are worried about Draknor too,” she said to the Council. “I heard you. During the Arcalon.”
Let them know I know.
What more can they do to me?
It got their attention. Worried whispers flared around her. Elias visibly paled. Evelyn and Merrick exchanged shocked looks.
Her father stared at her. “You do not know what you heard, Karalynna. The Council would act if there was a true threat to Vallenna–”
Right. That’s why you want to execute the one person who could save us.
“There is a true threat. Sebastian didn’t just wake up one day and decide to betray the realm he’s fought his entire life for!” She was shouting now. Why was she shouting? “How could you actually believe–”
The judge raised a hand. “That is enough.”
Silence fell again. Long. Uncomfortable.
“The Council will now retire to consider their verdict.”
The six rose and strode through a door behind the dais. Kara was left standing alone, guards either side, the gallery’s eyes boring into her back. The wait felt endless. But it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before the door opened again. They filed back in, faces grim.
That was fast.
Her stomach sank. A guilty verdict took no time at all.
“It is time for the Council to cast their judgement,” the judge said, the words echoing through the hall. “You will each in turn state either one of two verdicts: guilty, or not guilty.”
Kara stood tall. She couldn’t look away as the Council members voted – one by one.
Merrick Durent spoke first. “Guilty.”
Simone Navyr followed. “Guilty.”
Elias Lyra hesitated only a moment. Then: “Guilty.”
Evelyn Sorrel looked at her with deep sadness before she said, “Guilty.”
Galen Caldris. His gaze flicked towards her, before glancing to Henry, seated in the gallery. “Guilty.”
The room fell silent again. Only one Council member remained.
Her father.
Kara looked directly at him. He was frozen in place – his fists clenched on the arms of his chair. She couldn’t read him. She didn’t want to beg. She wouldn’t. A long moment passed. Something calculating passed across his face. Kara had seen that look before. And then, finally, his voice:
“...I abstain.”
The blood drained from her cheeks. It wasn’t protection.
Alaric Hale had decided the version of himself he could live with.
He wouldn’t condemn her, no. Couldn’t bring himself to say the actual words.
But he wouldn’t try to save her either. It was worse than guilty.
It was nothing. Just abandonment. Distance. Silence.
The judge inclined his head. “Five guilty. One abstention. The Council has rendered its judgement.”
Guilty.
There was a moment of silence – then the gallery erupted – not in horror, but anger. Shouts. A few cheers. Some applause. Someone yelled “traitor.” Another spat towards the platform.
Kara flinched. They weren’t just cheering her death. They were demanding it. She stood there in the middle of it all – bound, alone – as the City celebrated the verdict. And her father said nothing.
The judge banged his gavel. “Silence!” he commanded. As the crowd quieted, he turned his attention back to her.
“You will be taken back to the holding cells. No visitors. I will consider all that I have heard and pass sentence tomorrow.”
Sebastian, I love you.
If I don’t get to tell you, please know it. Please feel it.
The guards took her arms and guided her off the platform, back towards the courtyard, and her cell.
As she walked from the chamber, she looked back once – to the Council, and the place where her father still sat.
He stared back, silent and unmoved. If this was the last time she saw him – then so be it.
He hadn’t stopped riding. Not through the night, or when the sun rose behind him.
Not when he thundered over the Durent border.
Not even when the pain in his ribs turned sharp and hot with every breath.
Every hoofbeat was one second closer. Or one second too late.
When the valmare faltered, Sebastian had no choice.
He hauled her into a village stable, and slid off before she’d fully stopped.
Her flanks were trembling, foam around her mouth. Guilt stabbed at him.
I’m sorry. But Kara matters more.
He tore the saddle free, and thrust the reins at a stable hand.
“Water her. Let her rest.” He didn’t wait for an answer, or ask or explain.
Just threw himself onto the first valmare he saw – a light grey, startled and stubborn under his weight – and drove her into a gallop before the stable hand’s shouts had even faded.
One more crime; one more person he’d wronged.
I don’t care.
He’d lost feeling in his fingers, but kept an iron grip on the reins.
Mercifully, his magic had begun to spark back to life, crimson igniting faintly across his hands.
He used it to dull the pain in his ribs.
The wind whipped his cloak behind him. Dirt and blood streaked his face.
His tunic was soaked through with sweat, but he barely noticed.
Please. Let me reach her.
He didn’t know who he was begging. The Gods?
The Arcanth? Fate? It didn’t matter. He’d bargain with anything – his life, his soul, his House – if it would get him there faster.
He knew how justice worked in Vallenna, how quickly verdicts turned to executions when someone had made up their mind.
If Kara’s trial had already started – if the Council had already ruled, if he were too late–
No, he wouldn’t think it–
But his mind had already envisioned the possibilities.
If Kara died, he would sail across the eastern reach, Vallenna be damned, and beg the Occarli on his hands and knees to use their time magic to send him back and save her. Oath or no oath. And if they refused? He’d cut down as many as needed to get what he wanted.
He forced the thoughts down. He wouldn’t be too late. Kara would live. He gritted his teeth and leaned lower in the saddle, urging the valmare on.
Hold on, Kara. Just hold on.
The heavy iron door swung open, and Tobias Thorne stepped into the tower room where his son had been held.
It was empty.
“Gone,” one of the guards muttered beside him, pale-faced. “He was – he was here last night–”
“Clearly not now,” Tobias snapped, playing the role of shocked lord. Inside, relief warred with worry. Sebastian had made it out. But had he made it far enough? He stepped inside, scanning the room – the bindings left discarded in the corner. Nightshade wraps cut straight through.
As intended. Well done, boy.
He tensed his jaw. Clenched his fists. He had to look the part. He turned slowly, to face the two guards standing uselessly in the corridor. “You had one job,” he said, low and dangerous. “One.”
“My lord, we don’t know how he–”
“Then perhaps you’re too dim to be wearing a sword. Shall I send you to explain to the High Council how we lost the most wanted fugitive in Vallenna?”
The younger one paled further. The other said nothing.
Tobias straightened. “Never mind,” he snapped. “I’ll write the report myself.”
He stormed out, footsteps echoing his rage.
Make it convincing. Let them believe I’m furious.
Tobias strode back through the halls to his study, not bothering to stoke the fire. He sat at his desk, pulled parchment towards him, and dipped his quill. He chose his words carefully:
To the High Council of Vallenna,
It is with regret that I inform you that the prisoner, Sebastian Thorne, has escaped his cell in the night–
He wrote it all, the nightshade, the tower.
Clearly. Precisely. The truth, more or less.
He just left out the part about giving him the blade.
He set down the quill. The scroll sat before him, neatly written and ready.
His personal hawk sat on a perch by the window.
Waiting. He stared at it for a long moment.
The wax seal sat close at hand, his signet ring glinting beside it.
And yet, he didn’t move. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, exhaled slowly, and stared into the fire.
“Ride faster, boy,” he muttered. “I’ve bought you all the time I can.”
He turned away, leaving the scroll where it lay.
Unsealed. And unsent.