CHAPTER 35
THE CHOICES WE MAKE
Lieutenant S. Thorne shows great swordsmanship and field ability; however, he appears to assume personal responsibility for losses beyond his control. His captain will monitor.
Sebastian slammed the library doors shut behind him. He couldn’t look at Kara’s face right now. Couldn’t risk seeing his own doubt mirrored back at him.
It was never her choice. It was all a lie.
The woman he loved – the woman he thought had chosen him – freely and completely, had been manoeuvred into his arms like a puppet.
His hands shook. Crimson had started to spit off his fingers.
He needed to hit something, break something.
The first thing he saw in the square outside was a Fatàn monument – a low obsidian slab, glowing with silver glyphs, the Fatàn creed etched on it clear in the torchlight:
The Future is Written
Crimson blurred the edges of his vision.
His fists came down hard on the stone. A resounding crack filled the air. Again. Again. His magic exploded out of him – uncontrolled, unleashed, in a way it hadn’t been in years. It sparked from his palms in violent arcs, searing down on the silver glyphs.
Watch what fucking happens when you try to control me.
The obsidian slab glowed at the edges where his power struck, melting, the air hissing with heat.
Crimson flared wilder with each impact. The slab fractured.
Shattered. Chunks of stone flew across the square.
Pain shot through his knuckles, hot and searing, but he welcomed it.
It drowned out the chaos in his head. He only stopped when the last dark shards cracked apart in his hands.
When his own blood smeared the stone. He gazed across the empty square, his breathing ragged, his mind screaming the same thought over and over.
Without their prophecy, she would have married Caldris.
Duty would have won.
Crimson energy still pulsed over his hands in furious bursts. It was going to rip him apart if he didn’t get a handle on it. But he wanted the anger, the destruction – he wanted to burn the entire city to the ground.
Then he felt her.
Felt Kara’s magic reach for his, steady where his was chaos, calm where his was a storm. He didn’t want it. He tore away from it.
“Sebastian–”
Her voice echoed through the silent square, and he rounded on her, furious.
“I killed people, Kara,” he snarled. “My own men. You almost burned alive. And for what? For their sick little plan to make sure we–” He paused, but he forced it out like a curse, “–to make sure we fell in love?”
“That’s not what she said–”
“It’s what she meant!” he raged. “That nothing mattered unless we were broken enough to bond properly. Just part of their Godsdamned script!”
In pure fury he threw a large chunk of broken stone across the square. Kara, to her credit, didn’t even blink.
“What does that say about us? That you could only love me enough when I had blood on my hands. After the flames, the nightshade–” He let out a savage roar. “Only when the whole realm wanted to kill us?”
He lifted his eyes, saw her green ones looking at him with love... but there was something else. A crack – just for a moment before she hid it. Doubt.
Tell me I’m wrong, Kara, please. Lie to me if you have to.
He dragged in a shaking breath, pacing through the broken monument, shards crunching under his boots. “Without all of it, you’d still be standing with Henry Caldris, wouldn’t you? You’d belong to him.”
Deny it. Please.
She stared at him for a long moment. Her chest rising and falling too quickly. But the silence said more than her words ever could.
His throat burned as he added, laced with venom, “I heard you that night at the ball. I heard you tell Sienna that it didn’t matter how you felt about me.
That you were engaged. That you’d do your duty.
Hearing it from Fatàn lips, well...” He laughed humourlessly.
“It proves what I’ve always known. I was never your choice. ”
Her lips parted, but still not one word of denial passed her lips.
I fucking knew it.
His voice cracked but he pushed the words out. “That you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, have just loved me for me?”
Every second she hesitated cut deeper. He felt a wall go up between them. She must have too because he saw panic slip into her gaze as he turned away.
“No,” she cried. “No, don’t you dare think that. Of course I love you for you, Sebastian.”
Right.
Kara’s voice trembled. “I told Sienna at the ball – I told her I cared about you, more than I should. That I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Long before there was fire. Or Shards. You were already there, in my heart. You didn’t hear that, did you?”
He turned his head, hardly enough to catch her eye.
“But,” she added, tears threatening, “Veyra was right. I might not have chosen. Not then. Not until I was forced to. But Sebastian, you have to know I wanted to. And it doesn’t mean I love you any less now.
It just means I’m not proud of how weak I was.
Of how long it took me to act on what I already knew. ”
Not then.
Not until he was the last thing between her and death. A choice made with a blade at her throat. The only way someone like him could be chosen at all. Kara took a shaky step towards him but didn’t close the distance.
“Every night after you left the City,” she said, voice shaking. “I dreamt of you. Only you. Of running to you in Durent, begging you to take me away from Henry.”
He wanted that to be true, that she’d wanted him even then. Gods, he wanted it. But his thoughts were poison.
An escape. That’s all it was.
“And when we were chasing you, whilst everyone else saw a thief, a traitor, all I could think was that you were the man who saved my life. A good man.”
“Good?” A humourless laugh tore out of him. “Those feelings didn’t stop you, did they? Weren’t enough then. You still captured me. Bound me. Did your duty.”
The moment he’d said it, he knew he’d gone too far. She looked like he’d hit her.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.
“Four days,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “We’d known each other for four days. I was raised on obedience, duty. It wasn’t exactly simple. But I broke all of that for you.” She advanced on him, shaking with fury and hurt. “How could you throw that back at me? After everything?”
What the hells is wrong with me?
“Kara, I didn’t–” he started, reaching for her.
“Don’t.” She shoved his hand away roughly. “What I did to you – it’s the most shameful moment of my life. The thing I regret most. You know that.”
“I know, I’m sorry–”
“I let you go,” she shouted over him. “I stood with you when everyone else turned their backs! I spoke for you in front of the entire Council when they called you a traitor.”
“Kara–”
“I went to a pyre for you, Sebastian,” Kara raged. “What else do you want me to do? Burn for real? Because I was ready to do that too!”
No, don’t say that.
He drew back, colour draining from his face. “I–I didn’t mean–”
“You know what I remember most about when I was tied to that stake?”
Sebastian froze, fear flaring sharply inside him.
Her eyes blazed. “I was terrified I’d die without ever getting the chance to tell you I loved you.”
He actually stepped back, his hands trembling. It hurt too much to imagine her tied to that pyre thinking of him, when he hadn’t protected her. He couldn’t bear it. And because – if anything, it only proved what Veyra said. People clung to anything, to anyone, when their life was slipping away.
Even me.
That was desperation. Not something real. And it could vanish the moment she wasn’t afraid.
“Don’t say that,” he rasped, shaking his head hard. “You don’t–you didn’t–”
“I looked into your mind once. Once, Sebastian,” Kara continued, relentless. “And that was all it took for me to give you my life. All of it. All of me. Is that not enough for you?” she demanded.
“It’s not about enough–”
“Then what is it about?” Her voice rose. “Because I gave you everything the day I let you go, Sebastian. That wasn’t the Shards, or fire, or fate. That was me. My choice.”
His mind flashed with the memory, the way she’d looked at him when she untied him, joined him, and turned her back on her whole life to do it.
Because Fatàn forced her down that path.
“I do love you for you, Sebastian.” Tears ran freely down her cheeks now. “I don’t care what she says. They can move all the pieces they want, but they can’t create love where it doesn’t exist.”
He wanted nothing more than to believe her.
For a heartbeat, he almost did. His foot actually shifted forward half a step of its own accord.
But the weight of the Soulbond landed on him.
Soulbonds didn’t end in fairy tales. Everyone knew that.
They ended in grief, in hollowed-out shells of people left behind.
The image of Kara burst into his mind, broken and half-alive because he’d fallen in battle.
Because she’d bound herself to a man who lived by his sword.
She’ll be damned the moment I fall.
He stopped. Completely froze.
Her voice turned desperate, pleading. “Sebastian – please you have to hear me–”
His throat got tight, but he forced the words out anyway. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
He turned from her. Couldn’t look at her face.
She’s safe here. Behind Fatàn’s shield. Safer without me.
With that thought burning in his mind, he stormed away from Kara, away from Soulbonds and fate.
He threw himself down dark alleyways, through city streets.
He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed distance.
Needed to get as far away as he could from futures that had written themselves for him.