Page 104 of Curse of Thorns
“Let’s finish what we agreed to in the cottage,” he says, approaching slowly like I’m a wild animal he’s afraid to spook. He stands over us both.
Caelynn’s eyes grow wide.
“Give me your hand, and I’ll break the mating bond.”
Caelynn gasps, and my stomach sinks.
“You’ll be free of her curse, brother. You’ll see clearly,” Reahgan adds patiently. Always the older brother, looking to teach me something new.
I did want it.... Because I’m so confused about what is real and what is just the magic. I turn back to Caelynn, and her eyes are... indescribable. Pain like I’ve never seen before.
I’ve seen fear in her eyes before, but not like this. This time, it’s pure devastation. “No,” she breathes. “Please.”
My breaths become labored, my heart aching. I could break the bond with her. I could clear my head, and maybe Reahgan’s right—I’d see clearly then.
But then, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d still love her and hate her and need her without magic telling me so.
“I’ve already given everything,” she begs. “Please, don’t take that.” Her body is beaten and battered, her blood slick on my hands.
“Pathetic child,” my brother complains. “Stop your whining.”
My eyebrows pinch together. “The things you said to me in the shadow room at the High Court.”
She winces, and her face falls more, as if resigning to her fate. Her lips press together, and a sob shudders her shoulders.
“Did you only say those things,” I continue softly. I have to know. “Because you knew breaking my heart, pushing me away, was the only way to get me through the Wicked Gates?”
Their single worst sin becomes the soul’s new quest. Resolve it, and be redeemed.
My hatred of her, my rage—that was my flaw. My weakness. My damnation. And I’d forgiven her. Is that why I couldn’t enter the Schorchedlands? And is that why she said it?
“Rev,” my brother says more forcefully.
Caelynn’s eyes pop back open, gold flickering for only a moment. “Yes,” she whispers desperately.
I nod; that truth settles easily. It all fits, all makes sense. It’s so within Caelynn’s character to destroy things, especially herself, to save me.
My brother, the brother I mourned for a decade, whose death I never got over, is standing by me, ready to fight with me. For me. He’s ready to take my hand and help me become High King, the position stripped from him by the very female dying in my arms.
But I won’t take more from her. I won’t let her keep giving all of herself for me.
This time, it won’t be Caelynn breaking herself for me.
This time, I’ll break myself—for her.
I stand and face my brother, hands clenched into tight fists.
