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The anguish etched across his face told the whole story—the torment, the regret, the unbearable weight of history repeating itself.

The brother who had never forgiven himself.

No matter how this ended, Seb would be broken by it.

He’d spend another five centuries—or however long vampires lived—haunted by this night.

The water around my feet rippled with my distress. “There has to be another way,” I whispered, even as I knew there probably wasn’t. But watching Seb prepare to kill his sister a second time… God, it was unbearable.

“Wait. Stop!” My voice was weak, but it carried across the chaos. “I understand, Magdalena.”

Magdalena picked herself up and stepped towards me, purple fire still dancing in her eyes. “You understand nothing, child. ”

“You’re right. I don’t pretend to understand what you suffered—being condemned by your own brother, burned at the stake… it’s unimaginable.” I swallowed hard. “But I do know something about hiding. About fear. About being trapped by others’ expectations.”

Something flickered across her face—recognition, perhaps. Or pain.

“They taught me to hate myself too,” I said softly. “Not the same way, not with the same consequences. Nothing like what you endured. But I see how desperate you must have been for any escape, any alternative to their cruelty.”

The purple light wavered. For just a moment, I saw past the demon-touched creature to the young woman she must have been—before the Inquisition, before Lilith, before her own brother was turned against her.

“Magdalena,” Seb stepped forward, his voice breaking on her name. “It was my blindness that condemned you. My weakness. I was so desperate to belong, so caught in Rodrigo’s manipulation that I betrayed the one person I should have protected above all others. ”

“You still know nothing of what they did to us!” Ignoring Seb, Magdalena spoke directly to me.

“What their ‘God’ demanded. While my brother hunted innocents, I watched them burn women for daring to read. For healing. For refusing to bow.” The purple light pulsed with her words. “Lilith offered freedom.”

“Freedom?” Seb stepped closer. “Look at what that freedom cost. Look at what you’ve become. Trading one prison for another, trading their cruelty for Lilith’s.”

She finally rounded on him, water spraying up around her feet. “And what would you know of it? You, their perfect son, their perfect soldier—”

“Their perfect victim.” Seb’s face softened, leaving him looking suddenly vulnerable.

“I was so blind, Magdalena. So caught in Rodrigo’s web that I couldn’t see…

” His voice broke. “I couldn’t see he was manipulating me, just as Lilith manipulated you.

We were both children,” he whispered. “Both so desperate to belong that we let monsters shape us.”

“Magdalena, he’s spent five centuries torturing himself over what happened to you,” I added, praying that the conviction in my voice would get through to her. “It wasn’t truly Sebastián who condemned you—it was the Church that twisted him, just as Lilith has twisted you.”

Magdalena gaze fixed on me with something like wonder. The purple fire in her eyes dimmed, replaced by an ancient, searching look that seemed to pierce straight through my skin, my bones, down to something deeper.

I couldn’t move. Not from magic this time, but from the weight of her scrutiny. Like she was reading every moment of my life—the years of suffocating silence, the crushing weight of expectations I could never meet, desires I could never voice.

“You’ve carried much pain,” she whispered, her voice soft and wondering. “And much guilt.”

Pure agony suddenly ripped through my chest, as if someone had thrust their fist between my ribs and squeezed.

The darkness inside me resurged—the bitter cold that had been growing and growing, claiming me piece by piece.

My vision blurred, the world tilting sideways, and more copper burst onto my tongue as my mouth filled with blood.

I stumbled, my legs turning to water beneath me, but Seb caught me before I hit the ground.

His arms were steel bands around my waist, his chest solid against my back.

My head fell back against his shoulder as another wave of agony tore through me, and I bit back a cry.

Despite everything—the pain, the darkness, the terror—there was something comforting about being held by him.

Like finding shelter in the middle of a storm.

But every heartbeat felt wrong now, too fast, too hard, like my heart might explode from the pressure building inside it. I tried to say Seb’s name, but my throat seized, the word dissolving into a strangled gasp.

Seb’s eyes widened, panic creasing his brow. “Flynn? Flynn, stay with me.” His voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel, fading in and out.

I clutched at his arms, fingernails digging into his sleeves as another wave of agony swept through me. This one felt different—sharper, more insistent. Like the darkness was no longer content to simply leech away at my life, but was instead tearing into me with vicious intent.

“Seb—” I gasped out his name. My heart jackhammered erratically in my chest, each beat slower than the last. “I… I don’t think…”

“No.” The single word was a growl, his arms tightening around me in a grip of iron. “Don’t you dare, Flynn Carter. Don’t you dare leave me.”

I tried to speak again, to tell him how much he meant to me, but a fresh spasm of pain stole my breath. Tears burned my eyes as the darkness closed in, blotting out everything but the sound of my faltering heartbeat.

This was it, then. The end of my story.

An unexpected wave of regret washed over me, quickly followed by anger. It wasn’t fair—not after finally having the courage to escape Braymore. To start living my life. Not after the gift of Seb’s love, brief though it had been. To have it all snatched away like this …

No. I refused to accept it. Digging deep, I pulled together every last scrap of strength and forced my eyes open, twisting my head.

Seb’s face swam into view, his expression a mask of anguish. Those fathomless dark eyes I loved so much were awash with unshed tears, his lips pressed into a tight line as if bracing himself.

For what? My death?

The thought ignited a spark of defiance deep within me.

With trembling fingers, I reached up and traced the sharp line of his jaw, drawing his gaze to mine.

At the look of raw desolation in Seb’s eyes, I finally understood the depth of his suffering, the centuries of loneliness and self-denial that had brought him to this point.

“Promise me…” Each word felt like shards of glass in my throat, but I persisted. “Promise you won’t go back to how you were before. Alone. Refusing to let anyone in.”

“Flynn, I—”

“Promise me,” I rasped again, fighting against the rising tide of darkness. “You’ve suffered enough, Seb. Let yourself find happiness, whatever that means for you. Don’t… Don’t shut yourself away again. Do it for me.”

Bending down, he pressed his forehead to mine, his arms flexing around me in an embrace so tight it drove the breath from my weakened lungs.

“I promise,” he whispered, the words containing a torrent of anguish.

“Whatever you need of me, I swear it. But stay with me, Flynn. Don’t leave me.

I… Flynn, I love you. I’ve existed through five hundred years of darkness, convinced that love was a luxury I didn’t deserve.

But you… You’ve brought light into every shadow.

I love you with a ferocity that terrifies me, Flynn, and I cannot—will not—imagine continuing this endless existence without you in it. ”

But even as the words left his lips, I could feel myself slipping away. The pain was fading, the darkness no longer something to fight against, but a soft embrace drawing me down into blessed oblivion .

I let my eyes drift shut, savoring the feel of Seb surrounding me. With the last of my strength, I brushed away the tear that lingered on his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, the words little more than a whisper on the night breeze. “I’ll find you again some day, Sebastián.”

The darkness claimed me, sweeping me away into its endless void.