Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
My heart was whole. It overflowed with love and purpose, and it would unmake Jokull. Sebastian would live. He might despise me for it, would absolutely rage and grieve and maybe never forgive me, but he would be warm. He would laugh again one day. That was worth anything.
That was worth everything.
“Brona.” His hand tightened on mine. “Thank you.”
“Nein, thank you,” I said, and smiled at him, and I did not tell him he was about to lose this battle. I’d bragged about my strength time and time again. Today, I proved it.
The realm groaned, deep and resonant. The sound of convergence vibrated and hummed until my inner ears ached. Then the world went white, and I was somewhere else, and nowhere. The rune with me. Not a stone any longer but a presence—vast, patient, ancient, and so terribly, terribly ready.
And it reached.
Not for me.
For him.
I sensed it close around my husband’s heart. Beneath that terrible grasp, his heart fluttered once, warm and stubborn and full of me, of Harpa, of a thirteen year-old boy who never got to be young.
Mine? the stone asked me in every language at once.
The clock starts now.
It turned to me, expecting me to agree.
“Nein.” I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Because Sebastian’s heart was mine. He’d said so himself, in a cave, with his palm burning over my chest. What is mine belongs to my firebrand as well. “Sebastian’s heart is mine.”
“Brona,” he bellowed. And suddenly I could see him, there in the world of white. His eyes pleaded with me. “Say it. Say the words.”
Ninety seconds.
“Nein.” I screamed it with my entire body, and my dragon screamed it with me, fire and instinct and everything I had. “Nein! Take mine. I gave it to him, it’s his to give, take it. I offer it freely. It’s whole, it’s here, take it—”
Seventy seconds.
Light and heat climbed up my legs, settling over my heart. But I felt Sebastian, too, fighting. Fighting with everything he had.
Mine? it asked him, requesting permission to replace my heart.
“Nei.” His voice tore out of him like something dying. “Mine.”
I refused for him, and he refused for me, so the stone drained from me and hung between us.
Convergence intensified. Above, the three tides ground toward alignment. Below, the runes on the disc pulsed faster, faster, and neither of us gave, so the stone could not take.
Fifty seconds.
“Sebastian.” My throat went raw. “Say it. Give it my heart.”
“Nei.” Wind whipped around us. “Nei.”
Somewhere behind me Harpa was shouting something, but I could not hear it. I didn’t need to hear it to know. “The convergence is passing,” I screamed at him. “Sebastian, if neither of us gives, it takes nothing. Jokull walks into this dome and he eats our people.” My voice broke into pieces. “Everyone you love.”
Forty seconds. He looked at me. And he was calm. Because he wasn’t wrestling with this. He wasn’t tormented. He had decided in a cave when he’d marked me as his queen.
“Já,” Sebastian agreed softly. “They will.”
And that’s when I realized. This man knew me. Every stubborn, duty-bound piece of me. He knew I would protect this realm, these people, our kingdom to my last breath.
And he was counting on it. Forcing me to make the choice he knew I would make. To back down. To give the rune permission to take his heart.
Because what if I didn’t?
If I continued to refuse, I wouldn’t lose him tonight, but I’d still lose. We both would. Slowly, over centuries, as Jokull destroyed our home. As innocents died and villages fell. And I couldn’t let him live through that. I loved him far too much.
Twenty-five seconds.
He’d told me, chapter and verse, from the very first night. Enemies adore nothing more than exploiting a berserker’s firebrand.
Ten seconds.
It had been a warning. Love over obligation, and everyone would suffer for it.
Now, the stone waited. The convergence crested.
Five seconds.
Four.
Three.
Finally, I made my choice. The choice he’d wanted me to make all along, and my dragon released a cry that would forever haunt me. “I give my permission.”
The light climbed up Sebastian again. There was no scream. No muscles contorted in agony. He simply stopped. The light now drew up into his chest, collecting in his heart. No, replacing his heart. I watched it happen.
I forced myself to witness as love drained from my husband’s face. As my palmprint faded the brand in my chest iced. As his eyes, those shifting, roiling, impossible eyes that had stormed and softened and burned for me since a mist-cloaked clearing in a circle of standing stones went flat.
Then still.
Then cold.
He blinked once, and the wind died. There was nothing there. Not confusion. Not pity. Not even dislike. Empty.
“Sebastian,” I whispered.
“Your obligation has now ended. You may go.”
Dismissed. A barbed lump grew in my throat. “I love you,” I told him.