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“My wife would agree with you.”

“Your wife believes I deserve worse than a cell, and she is not wrong.”

He came to a stop, setting his bowl down on the low wall. Shoving his hands deep into his pockets and staring out at the towering mountains, he said, “I am sorry, Talwyn.”

She laughed. A strangled, shocked bark of noise. “I tried to kill you, and you are apologizing to me?”

He turned to face her fully. “I should have been there. You had already lost so much, and then I…” He blew out a breath. “I should have been there for you. I am sorry that I was not. And for these past twenty years, for my part in the feud between us, I apologize for that too. For all of it.”

She stared at him, utterly speechless. She had used her magic against him, struck him in the chest with a bolt of energy, nearly took him from this world, andhewas apologizing toher?

He reached over, gently taking the bowl from her hands and setting it beside his own. “I know I am no longer needed to watch over you, but I will make sure that you are not placed back in that cell. There will be guards outside whatever room you are given, and I can make no promises about the wrist shackles—”

“Sorin, stop,” she interrupted in a harsh whisper, and he fell silent. “Please stop…apologizing to me. I do not deserve such a thing, least of all from you.”

He gave her another sad smile. “You deserve an apology, Talwyn. I made you a promise, and I broke that promise. I raised you as much as Eliné did. Knowing what I know now, she left you, yes. But she left you with me, and I failed you.”

“I tried to kill you,” she whispered.

“You succeeded.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I entered the After. For the briefest of moments,” he answered, turning back to face the mountains once more.

“Then how do you stand before me?”

“That is a long story that involved Cethin bartering with Serafina from what I understand, and Scarlett…” A fond smile filled his features. “Being Scarlett.”

“I do not understand,” Talwyn said. “I hit you in the chest, Sorin. There should have been no coming back from that. I thought I had…” She trailed off, the entire scene replaying in her mind once more.

“I know, Talwyn,” he said gently. “Even I do not fully understand what was done.”

“And you are fine? You died, came back, and are completely fine?” she asked, scanning him from head to toe, but when her gaze went back to his face, she saw the wince.

“That does not matter,” he answered. “What matters is that I am here. With her. No matter what the cost was.”

But there was a cost, and Sorin, being who he was, was again trying to protect her. But she did not need him to protect her. Not because she thought she did not deserve protection. That wasn’t it at all. She did not need to be protected from the consequences of her actions. If he paid a cost to come back from death, then she had forced him to pay it. She did not wish to be protected from that reality. She needed to face it, feel it.

“Tell me the price you paid.”

“You have enough guilt and burden to bear, Talwyn. There is no need to add to it.”

“I am not a child any longer, Sorin,” she replied, lifting her hands to brush back stray hair. She scarcely felt the bite of the shackles. “I was not a child when you… I blamed so many, but what I have become? That is not your fault. That is not Eliné’s fault. It is no one’s fault but my own, and I wish to know what cost you have paid because of me.”

Sorin studied her, seeing her in a way that no one else ever could. Azrael may have known of her as a child, but she rarely interacted with the Earth Prince then. Ashtine was her same age for all intents and purposes. But Sorin? Sorin had been Eliné’s Second. He had always been around. Seeing him in the Black Halls was as natural as seeing her aunt. He would always know her in a way that others didn’t. No matter how much they both changed, there would forever be some trace of Little Whirlwind and the Prince.

Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it, because Sorin finally spoke. His voice was low and quiet, as though he was trying to soften the blow he was about to deliver. “The cost was my magic.”

Talwyn lurched back from him. “What?”

She could say nothing else. Her brain could not form any other thought because she could not comprehend what he had just said.

“I no longer have my magic,” he repeated. “I cannot summon fire. I cannot create portals. I cannot…” He pulled his hand from his pocket and held it up. His left hand. Where a twin flame Mark should have been stark against his golden skin. Only a gold band was there. “I cannot have a twin flame. I am mortal with an extended lifespan. That was the cost. To correct the balance.”

Talwyn Semiria sank to her knees and wept.

All those little things that had bothered her made sense now. The muted eye color. The thicker tunic. The offering of a cloak instead of his magic to warm her in the spring weather.