CHAPTER 46
A HERO’S FUNERAL
Every name lost in service to Vallenna shall be remembered.
– Thorne Code of Honour, Tenet XIV
It had been a week since the battlefield.
Seven days since Kara had lost... him.
A week of waking to the same reality. It hadn’t improved. It hadn’t gotten easier.
The first morning had been the worst. Because she’d forgotten. She’d woken reaching for him, thinking, for one heartbeat, that he’d been beside her. Choking fresh grief had torn through her when she’d realised he wasn’t there.
That he had died.
The flood of pain was so violent that Alys and Sienna had pressed trembling hands to her temples, pouring magic into her until sleep dragged her under again.
But sleep was no mercy. She dreamed of him still.
And then she woke again. And again. And every time she woke, he was still gone.
Now, a week later, the pain was no less.
The numbness people promised never came.
Only a hollow ache. An empty space where he should have been.
This is no way to live.
It was not the first time she’d thought it. But it was true. And she wasn’t sure how long she could endure it. She would stay breathing, at least long enough to say goodbye – he deserved that. After that... she couldn’t see. Didn’t want to.
Today, she stood in Thorne. Today, she was expected to watch him be put in the ground.
Plans had been made, mostly by Rowan – Tobias couldn’t bring himself to choose the details – for a hero’s funeral.
Kara pulled nervously at the sleeves of the black gown she wore.
Alys had picked it for her, laid it out.
She’d had to. Kara hadn’t been able to make one single decision.
She wasn’t ready for this. But the bells of Thorne tolled, low and heavy, carrying across the Keep.
It was time.
Kara walked down the steps towards the main hall, Alys and Sienna at her side, pale-faced and silent.
They’d hardly left her side since it happened.
She didn’t have the words to tell them what it meant to her.
Tobias, Rowan, and Saffra were waiting, tears already running down Saffra’s cheeks.
His sisters were a comfort she hadn’t expected.
They reminded her of him in little ways.
Helped her pretend he hadn’t really gone.
But when she saw the coffin laid before her draped in crimson, the black Thorne sigil stark against the cloth, her knees buckled.
He’s in there.
Tobias was at her side in an instant, his strong arm around her. “You are Thorne now. You are my family. And I will not let you fall.”
The words steadied her, but the sight of that coffin threw her mind back to the journey home.
To the carriage. How she’d stumbled through the soldiers that guarded his body when they’d stopped to rest, mad with grief, clawing at the carriage doors.
She’d needed to see him. Needed proof this wasn’t some nightmare.
“He’s not dead – open it, please, he’s not–”
They’d tried to hold her back, but she’d fought them wildly.
Shrieking. Sobbing. In the end they’d let her go, let the madness take her as she pounded and raked at the doors until her hands were bloody.
But they still would not open it. It had been sealed – Tobias’s orders – to preserve what dignity remained.
It had taken Tobias himself to catch her wrists, his face lined with his own grief, and whisper: “Kara, he’s gone. I know it hurts, but it’s not really him in there. Not anymore.”
She’d known then. She knew now. But his coffin still made her want to scream.
It just lay before her. Final. Unmoving.
The oak doors opened and weak autumn sunlight shone into the hall.
The coffin was lifted, held by Thorne’s strongest captains, those who knew him best, and the people gathered fell into a hush.
Together, she and the Thorne line followed as it began the slow descent through the Keep towards the temple.
So many had come. All of Thorne lined the streets, banners lowered, heads bowed.
And not just Thorne – members from every House stood in sombre silence, a sea of black.
They’d come to honour the Hero of Vallenna.
To thank Sebastian Thorne for giving his life for them.
He would have hated this. The gratitude, the speeches.
He’d have smirked, muttered something cutting under his breath, and slipped out halfway through.
Every step towards the temple felt like a step towards her own execution.
Death would have been kinder. At least if she’d fallen on the battlefield beside him, they’d be together.
But she knew – deep in her ruined soul – that he would never have allowed it.
She heard his voice still, from the cell where he’d saved her life, cruel in its clarity:
You’re not dying here.
But he wasn’t here anymore.
He can’t stop me.
The thought came unbidden – with terrifying focus. It almost gave her... relief. To never again wake to find nothing, to have an end to this pain–
No.
She shoved it down. She owed him more than that.
So she kept moving, one foot in front of the other, following the coffin into the temple.
It was full. Every bench taken. The air thick with the scent of burning candlewax.
Hands reached out as she walked past, attempting comfort.
Soldiers who’d fought beside him, strangers who’d doubted and now grieved.
She hardly felt it. But they passed murmurs of sympathy anyway.
Whispers of thanks to the woman who had saved Vallenna.
Like that matters now.
Tobias led her to the front row. Rowan and Saffra on one side, Alys and Sienna on the other. Kara didn’t register anything at first. The priest’s words, the crimson banners – it all blurred through her tears. She didn’t look away from the coffin. That was all that mattered.
That was him.
Some of the words reached her through the haze, though muffled by grief.
Tobias spoke first. The First Commander of Vallenna’s deadliest men – and even his voice shook.
“...my son, who stood where others would have fallen. Who faced the Drakens with a courage I will remember until my last breath. He was Thorne. He was Vallenna’s shield. For peace, he sacrificed.”
Rowan’s voice followed, softer. “...he was the one who put a blade in my hands when I was a child, who laughed when I fell, and who made sure I got up again...”
Next was Saffra, who broke into tears more than once. “...we used to race valmares across the fields at dawn... he always cheated, although he swore he didn’t... he was my brother, and I’ll miss him every day.”
Kara hadn’t realised Saffra had stopped speaking until Tobias was beside her again. His hand settled briefly on hers.
“Do you want to speak?” he asked quietly.
“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.
But she couldn’t just sit there. Couldn’t let them take him without something.
Even if words failed, she should stand for him one last time.
She didn’t know how she got to her feet, or how she moved.
She knew only that she needed to be close to him.
She climbed the steps to the coffin and placed a shaking hand against the crimson-draped wood.
“I’ll love you forever,” she mouthed. The words were meant for him alone, even if he couldn’t hear them.
The echo of him burned in her soul. Only a memory. But enough that the ripped edges flared with agony.
The temple was silent. No one dared move.
Her grief was its own eulogy. Everyone knew that they had been Soulbonded.
Her grief on the battlefield had proven it beyond doubt.
Many looked away from her, unable to bear the sight of her pain.
And then the tears came. Not as violent as the day he’d been struck down, but bad enough to force her to her knees.
Tobias rushed to her side, catching her for the second time.
True to his word, he didn’t let her fall.
“It’s not fair,” she sobbed into his shoulder.
He drew her into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head. Now he wasn’t a commander of an army, or the head of a House. He was a father burying his son. “I know. Gods, I know.”
He gently guided her back to her seat. There was a hand on her arm. Sienna, she guessed, by the faint calm that tried, hopelessly, to ease her pain. The ceremony finally ended, though Kara couldn’t have said how long it lasted.
The bells tolled again. Slow. Final.
And the coffin was lifted once more.
They walked slowly through the street, the crowd bowing their heads respectfully, until they were at the burial ground. It was a place of honour; where Thorne’s soldiers and heroes were laid to rest beneath carved stone.
And it was there, underneath the grey autumn sky, just as the rain started to fall, that they lowered him into the earth. Kara stared in a kind of numb horror as soil was thrown onto the wood of his coffin with a dull thud, until even that was taken from her too.
The Warrior was gone.
And the Healer who remained was only half alive.
The mourners left in silence. The only sound was the crimson banners fluttering softly in the wind. But Kara stayed. Her knees sank deep into the damp soil, her hands against the cold gravestone that now bore his name.
Sebastian Thorne.
Commander. Bondmate.
Hero of Vallenna.
Her fingers traced each letter, so gently, as if he could feel it.
It was the closest to him she could be.
She didn’t leave that night.
Or the next.
Or the one after that.
Sienna tried. So did Alys. They begged, pleaded, wrapped her in blankets against the frigid night air.
They brought food, tried to get her to eat something, anything.
But it tasted of nothing. Sips of water were all she managed.
The food lay untouched beside her. Kara pulled away from them, her voice breaking on the same words every time they tried to move her.
“I won’t leave him. Not again.”