CHAPTER 47 #2
“Kara, I remember,” he rasped, trying to pull her face up, but she kept pressing kisses everywhere her lips could reach – his ribs, his arms, his shoulders – sobbing too hard to stop.
“You’re alive,” she choked out against his chest. “Say it. Tell me you’re real. Please.”
“I’m alive, I swear it,” he assured her, his own voice breaking. “I’m here. I’m real.”
“You’re real,” she repeated like a prayer. “You’re real, you’re real.”
Please don’t leave me again.
Please, please, please.
He felt her words burn through their bond. They were more desperate than any he’d ever heard. Like they were carved into her very soul.
“I won’t,” he murmured into her hair. “I won’t leave you.”
Kara only sobbed harder.
“Gods,” he whispered, stroking her tear-stained cheek. “How am I here? What did it cost you?”
But she gripped his hands, pressing trembling kisses to them as though they were something sacred.
“I don’t care–I don’t care! I have you. You’re here, I’d do it a hundred times over,” she cried.
Sebastian had fought wars, commanded armies, stared down dark princes without faltering – but he had no armour for this. For her. For the way she held him like letting go would kill her, the worshipful way she kissed every part of him. He hardly knew what to do with a love this pure, this absolute.
How did I deserve this?
“Kara,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “You don’t have to–”
But she only shook her head violently. “Let me. Please.”
His heart ached at the words. He bent and crushed his mouth to hers, desperate to answer in the only way he knew how. He tried to pour every vow, every promise he could ever make her into that kiss.
I love you. I’m sorry.
I’ll never leave you again.
The bond flared, molten gold flooding them both. When at last they broke apart, he saw it – streaks of inky blackness threading through her magic, poisoning it.
Fuck. What did she do?
She caught the look on his face. “It doesn’t matter,” she said before he could ask.
“Yes, it does.” Sebastian took her trembling hands in his. “What happened?”
She reached up to cup his face. “Sebastian... words don’t describe it... I’ll – I’ll show you.”
Before he could protest, she opened her mind to him.
He saw everything. The battlefield. His own body lying pale and still, blood spilling from his chest. Kara screaming, clawing at the dirt to reach him.
His father kneeling at his side, pressing one broad hand to his forehead.
No words. No tears. Just grief carved into the hard lines of his face.
“Come home to Thorne,” Tobias had said.
His own funeral came next. Her silent vow at his coffin. I’ll love you forever.
Her nights at his grave. Freezing and broken. I won’t leave him. Not again.
Tobias’s voice. Talking of Sebastian’s mother. If I could go back, I’d have a healer in Thorne.
The spark of desperate hope those words had lit in her.
Her begging the Arcanth to go back, just once, whilst her body burned with golden magic.
That she would pay any cost. The smoke that had wrapped around her, dragging her into shadow.
The soldier she’d hunted down and killed so they would never be torn apart.
She showed him it all. And Sebastian staggered under it.
“You – you broke time for me?”
“I would do anything for you,” she answered fiercely.
And he believed her.
“Thank you,” he managed, although it hardly seemed enough.
She just kissed him again.
When they broke apart, Sebastian brushed his fingers through the black streaks in her magic. “But Kara, what is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, unflinching. “It burns a little. And I feel... weaker.”
He didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. He reached through their bond – not with words but with will – and pulled.
Not gently. Not carefully. He dragged half the corruption into himself, wrenching it across their souls.
The blackness writhed, fighting, then split.
It shot up his veins, dark and angry, latching onto his own magic until it mirrored hers.
He hissed with pain but endured it. Their golden light roared through them, defiant and furious, forcing the shadows back – not destroying them, but containing them.
The light was brighter than it had ever been – until suddenly it calmed and settled around them.
Their power was gold again. Pure. Whole.
But both their arms now bore scars: thin black veins branded beneath the skin.
He knew without casting any magic that they were permanent.
She gasped. “Sebastian–”
“I won’t let you carry this alone,” he said firmly, even as the darkness gnawed at his strength.
It doesn’t matter.
“Whatever it is, we’ll bear it together,” he told her.
She traced the scars on her arm, then lifted his to her lips and kissed his matching ones.
“Worth it,” she whispered against his skin. “I thought I’d never see you again. I buried you.” Tears spilled down her cheeks unchecked. “I wanted to die. I wanted to go with you.”
Sebastian went utterly still. Absorbing the horror of her words. “Don’t you ever say that, Kara. Not to me – you hear me?”
Her expression crumpled. “But it’s true. I couldn’t breathe without you. I didn’t want to. My heart – my soul–” She broke off, shuddering. “I knew you’d want me to live. It was the only thing that kept me standing.”
“Gods above.” He pulled her into his arms, unable to bear it. “I’m sorry, Kara, I’m so fucking sorry.”
She shook her head against his chest. “Don’t say that, you didn’t–”
Shame burned in him. “I should have been quicker. Stronger. You never should have suffered like this.”
Kara looked up. “It wasn’t your fault,” she insisted.
“I’m still sorry.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “If it’d been me, if I’d lost you – I wouldn’t have survived it.”
“Let’s neither of us die then, okay?” She tried to laugh, but the shaky sound that escaped was more a sob than anything else.
“Deal,” he promised.
Kara buried her face in his chest, completely overcome. He gathered her closer, their bond shaking violently as more cries tore out of her. Every emotion she felt surging through him.
Fuck, this hurts.
But he didn’t stop her. Gods knew she needed to let it out, and he wasn’t about to take that from her. He didn’t deserve to. Not after what she’d gone through.
This is what I left her with. Nothing but grief and fucking agony.
So Sebastian held her, letting the storm rage. But when her breath became too shallow, too sharp, her panic rising until she was choking on it, he stepped in. Had to. He gripped her chin gently and tilted her face up.
“Kara, look at me,” he said.
She tried to hide her face again, but he held her firm. “No. Look.”
Her gaze lifted.
She’s so beautiful.
“I’m here now, I’m alive,” he assured her. “You can’t keep going like this.” He moved her so she was tucked firmly into his side, his arm holding her upright. “Come, walk with me.”
He didn’t wait for agreement. Just guided her gently towards the courtyard. It was when they were finally outside in the fresh autumn air that she staggered back, eyes unfocused.
“Kara?”