Page 48 of Elemental Becoming

But what if it wasn’t?

The thrumming gets stronger.

What if someone else has been holding it—quietly, slowly breaking—so it wouldn’t break him?

The thrumming becomes so insistent, I rub my hand against my chest.

Tears fall freely now down his face, silver in the moonlight. Without hesitation, I pull him into me, holding him as tightly as I can.

Thane folds.

“We could have saved her,” he rasps. “If we’d just seen it for what it was.”

“You didn’t know.” My voice is fierce, trembling. “None of you knew.”

His fingers tighten against my back, his breath shuddering as he exhales.

“But we should have,” he whispers. “We should have seen it.”

His breath is unsteady, each inhale jagged like it’s catching on something sharp inside him.

“And I blamed him.”

A shuddering breath leaves him, his body folding inward like he’s trying to hold himself together—and failing.

“I blamed my father for letting her get to the point where she—”

He cuts off, the words catching, tearing on the way out.

He tries again. His voice is wrecked.

“She jumped off that fucking tower, and I—”

The rest collapses with him. I feel it—the way he wants to disappear into himself, to shut it all out. I don’t let him.

I pull him closer as his shoulders begin to shake, his weight pressing into me.

He holds on. Or maybe he’s falling apart.

His body gives out. He collapses against me, forehead dropping to my shoulder, too heavy with it all to stay upright. Moonlight catches on the wet tracks down his face.

For a moment, he’s quiet. Then he pulls back. He kneels before me, shoulders bowed, eyes heartbroken.

“I blamed him for all of it,” he says. “The war. The weight of this realm falling on me when it should have been him.”

A bitter laugh escapes him.

“He was supposed to be the one to carry this. This realm. This war. It was supposed to be him. Not me.”

His voice cracks on the last words, and I feel it like a knife to my ribs.

I hold him tighter, trying to anchor us both. And something in me shifts. The bond hums. The shadows coil closer. And the truth begins to surface.

I feel them moving through me—guiding me. Revelations rising, like butterflies breaking free of their cocoons.

He thought his father abandoned him.

But what if that wasn’t true? What if the silence wasn’t surrender? What if it was sacrifice?