Chapter 156

I would not leave him there.

Not in that clearing of carnage. Not among the bodies of the enemies he had died to save me from. Not where the scavengers would come, where the rain would wash over his face, where he would be forgotten in the mud and the blood.

"Carry him," I said, my voice hollow, broken. I looked at Ravin, at his bloodied lion form, at the exhaustion in his golden eyes. "Please. I won’t leave him here."

He didn’t argue. He shifted, his bones cracking, his fur receding, until he stood as a man, covered in blood and dirt and the gore of battle. He bent and lifted Lorian’s body with gentle hands, cradling him like a sleeping child.

We walked through the jungle in silence. The rain began as we left the clearing, soft at first, then harder, until it was a deluge, as if the sky itself could not contain its grief. It washed the blood from our skin, from their furs, from the body Ravin carried. It ran down my face, mixing with my tears until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

No one spoke.

Behind us, the traitors lay where they had fallen. Lizarah across her daughter’s body, their blood mingling in the mud. No one paid them any mind. They were garbage now, refuse to be disposed of, unworthy of thought or word or memory. Let the jungle have them. Let the scavengers pick their bones clean. They didn’t matter.

But Lorian mattered.

We reached the village as dawn was breaking, gray and wet and miserable. The rain hadn’t stopped. It drummed against the roofs, ran in rivers through the streets, turned the earth to soupy mud that sucked at our feet.

Reona met us at the edge of the village. She took one look at Ravin’s burden, at the body in his arms, at my face, and she understood that someone had fallen. Her hand flew to her mouth. A sound escaped her, something between a gasp and a sob.

"Lorian?" she whispered, stepping forward, her eyes wide with disbelief. "What... how?"

I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bear to see her grief on top of my own.

"Krys," she said, reaching for me.

I flinched away. "Don’t. Please. I can’t."

She stared at me, her golden eyes wide with hurt, with confusion. She didn’t know yet. She didn’t know about the betrayal, about the traitor in their midst, about the woman she had called friend.

Aurin stepped forward, his white fur stained with blood, his eyes empty. He looked at his mate, and I saw his shoulders sag, saw the weight of what he had to tell her settle on him like stones.

"Reona," he said, his voice rough. "We need to talk. About Lizarah."

Reona frowned, glancing between us, sensing the weight in the air, the horror we all carried. "What about Lizarah? What happened? Where is she?"

Aurin took her hands in his bloodied hands. "She’s dead. She and Laurelli. They were the traitors. They gave the seal to the stonehorn. They..."

He stopped, his voice breaking. I watched Reona’s face transform, watched confusion become dawning realization, watched realization become horror.

"No," she breathed, shaking her head. "No, that’s not... Lizarah is my friend. She wouldn’t... she couldn’t..."

"She did," Aurin said softly. "She confessed. She killed our children, Reona. She told the stonehorn where to find them. She wanted Cyrus to be chief. She wanted... she wanted revenge because he loved you. Because I loved you. Because everyone chose you over her."

Reona staggered back, her hand pulling free from Aurin’s, pressing against her stomach as if she had been struck. Her face went pale, then gray, then a terrible white. She looked at me, at Lorian’s body, at the blood on all of us, and the truth settled into her like a blade.

"She killed them," Reona said, her voice breaking, shattering into pieces. "She killed my babies. Because of me. Because Cyrus loved me. Because I couldn’t control who loved me." She laughed, a horrible, broken sound that turned into a sob. "All this devastation. All this death. Because I existed. Because I was loved."

I had no words for her. I had no comfort to give. I was empty, hollowed out, a shell of grief walking through the rain.

We took Lorian to the healing house. I insisted. I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept that he was gone, that I had failed him, that I had let him die when I could have...

What?

What could I have done?

The healers looked at him, touched him, and felt for a pulse that wasn’t there. They looked at me with pity in their eyes, with sorrow, with the gentle resignation of people who had seen too much death.

"He’s gone, my lady," the eldest healer said softly.

"No." I shook my head, rain dripping from my hair, my clothes, my skin. "No, he’s not. He can’t be. I can fix it. I can heal him. I just need to rest. Just a few hours. Then I’ll have the strength back. I can bring him back."

"Krys." Aureon’s voice, rough with exhaustion and his own grief. "Krys, he’s gone."

I turned on him, fury and grief warring in my chest. "You don’t know that! You don’t know! I didn’t try! I didn’t even try! I was so focused on the battle, on saving all of you, that I didn’t even think to heal him first!"

I fell to my knees beside Lorian’s body, my hands finding his, still warm, still soft. "I could have saved him," I sobbed. "If I had just reached for him first. If I had prioritized him. If I had..."

If I had loved him.

The thought hit me like a physical blow. I hadn’t loved him. I had found him annoying, arrogant, persistent to the point of discomfort. I had suspected him, distrusted him, pushed him away at every turn. And still he had loved me. Still he had died for me.

And now, now that it was too late, now that his heart was stilled, I realized what I had lost. Not just a life. Not just a man who loved me. But a possibility. A future I had never considered never allowed myself to imagine.

I would have accepted him.

Given time. Given the chance to know him beyond the arrogance and the pursuit. Given the opportunity to see the man beneath the mask, the romantic beneath the annoyance. I would have accepted him as a mate. I would have loved him, in my own way, in time.

But time was the one thing I couldn’t give. The one thing he didn’t have.

"Please," I whispered, pressing my forehead to his cold hand. "Please come back. I’ll do anything. I’ll love you. I’ll be yours. Just please. Please don’t be dead."

But he was. He was dead, and my promises were ash, and my grief was an ocean I was drowning in.

They prepared the pyre as the rain continued to fall. The wood was wet, soaked through, but they used oil and magic to light it anyway. It burned with a blue flame, hot and clean, consuming the evidence of our tragedy.

The tribe gathered. They came to honor the man who had betrayed his family to save their tribe. The man who had given everything for a woman who had given him nothing in return.

I stood before the flames, my clothes still wet, my hair plastered to my face, my eyes swollen and red. I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop seeing his smile, the way he had looked at me, the way he had said "I love you" with his last breath.

Reona stood beside me, her hand in mine, squeezing so hard it hurt. She was crying too, silent tears running down her face. For Lorian. For her children. For the friend who had betrayed her. For the life she had led that had caused so much pain simply by being lived.

"I’m sorry," she whispered. "I’m so sorry, Krys. This is my fault. If I had never... if Cyrus hadn’t... if she hadn’t hated me so much..."

"It’s not your fault," I said, my voice empty. "It’s not your fault that you were loved. It’s not your fault that she was cruel. It’s not your fault that she chose hate over friendship."

But even as I said it, I wondered. How much of this was fate? How much was choice? How much was the inevitable result of a world where love was a weapon, where mating was power, where rejection bred monsters?

They placed Lorian’s body on the pyre. I watched them do it. I watched them arrange him, his hands folded on his chest, his face peaceful, his smile still faintly curving his lips. He looked like he was sleeping. Like he might wake at any moment and make some arrogant comment, flash that golden smile, annoy me until I wanted to scream.

But he wouldn’t. He would never annoy me again. Never pursue me. Never look at me with those eyes that saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself.

The flames caught his tunic, his hair, his skin. The smell hit me, the smell of burning flesh, of finality, of goodbye.

I collapsed to my knees in the mud, screaming, sobbing, tearing at my hair, at my clothes, at my skin. The grief was too big, too vast, too consuming. It ate me from the inside out, guilt and regret and the crushing weight of "what if."

What if I had been kinder?

What if I had given him a chance?

What if I had healed him first?

What if, what if, what if...

The rain fell harder, as if the sky itself was weeping, mourning the loss of a good man, a romantic, a fool who had loved too much and been loved too little.

Aureon lifted me, held me, carried me away from the flames, from the smell, from the sight of the man I had failed turning to ash. I fought him, weakly, uselessly, still screaming, still crying, still drowning in the ocean of my own making.

"He’s gone," Aureon whispered against my hair, his own voice thick with tears. "He’s gone, Krys. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

"I could have saved him," I sobbed, reaching out blindly, clutching at whoever was closest. Aureon’s bloodied arms. Caelion’s arm. Ravin’s hands. Leon’s shoulder. Veylan’s fingers. Soryn was there too, holding our children back, their small faces confused and frightened by their mother’s breakdown. "I could have. I just... I didn’t... I chose wrong. I chose wrong, and he died. I could have...I could..."

Have what? Loved him? Could I have, truly? Or was this just guilt talking? Just the desperate bargaining of a woman who couldn’t accept that someone had died for her, who was trying to buy back her peace with promises she never would have made while he lived?

I didn’t know. I would never know. And that uncertainty, that terrible doubt, was its own kind of torture.

The pyre burned for hours. We watched it from the shelter of the house, wrapped in furs, in each other’s arms, in silence. No one knew what to say. No words could fix this. No comfort could reach the depth of my grief.