Chapter 45 It Broke Him
Caelum didn’t look back.
He couldn’t. If he turned his head, even a fraction, even a tiny stupid inch, he knew he would crumble right there on the cold, cursed ground and fall beside her. And falling beside her meant dying beside her. And dying meant nothing would ever be fixed.
So he kept walking.
Well—more like stumbling, dragging his feet like someone who had just ripped out his own heart and left it beating in the dirt behind him. The night air felt tight, like the world itself was holding its breath. Beside him, Elysande strode with calm purpose, her fingers curled around the stolen stone as if she were holding a newborn she actually liked.
“You hesitated,” she said, voice smoother than the darkness around them.
He didn’t answer. Mostly because he couldn’t breathe. Partly because admitting she was right felt like choking on glass.
Elysande slowed, turning her head just enough to catch his expression. “Do not look at me like that. You chose your side tonight.”
He closed his eyes. Big mistake. Her face flashed behind his lids—Seraphina, staring up at him in shock, her lips parting around words she didn’t get to finish. Her hand reaching toward him, not to fight, but… gods, she reached for him. Like she actually believed he would catch her.
He pressed his palm to his chest where the bond used to tug. Nothing tugged now. Nothing pulled. Nothing whispered. Just a hollow ache so loud he wanted to scream.
“I didn’t choose,” he managed, voice cracking slightly. “I just… acted.”
“Exactly.” Elysande walked ahead again, satisfied. “Instinct speaks truer than anything else. You protected what matters.”
He almost laughed. Almost. If a sound had left him, it would’ve been the ugliest noise ever produced by a living being.
Protected what matters.
Please.
The dagger was still warm in his hand. His fingers twitched around its handle like they were trying to un-stab someone. He wanted to throw it away but couldn’t—Elysande had said it was needed. Something about rituals, protection, power… he only heard half of it. His ears had been buzzing since the moment Seraphina fell.
What mattered?
He didn’t even know anymore.
They walked through the thinning trees until a break in the forest opened into a dark ridge overlooking a valley of shadows. Elysande finally stopped. The moonlight painted her face in silver angles, and her eyes glowed with Dracum’s presence.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
He hesitated.
She rolled her eyes. “He wants to speak.”
That made Caelum freeze.
He didn’t want Dracum’s voice in his head. The demon’s whispers had been messing with his thoughts for days—no, weeks. Telling him Seraphina was a threat. That she would be the end of the vampire race. That the prophecy tied her power to their downfall. Every time he tried to shake the damn voice, it came back, whispering things he did not want to believe but couldn’t fully ignore.
Reluctantly, he extended his hand.
Elysande placed her palm over his, and the air shivered.
A cold rush slid through his veins, like icy fingers flipping through the pages of his soul.
Then a voice—deep, distorted, almost amused.
“She would have killed you in the end.”
Caelum flinched. “No.”
“You think she loves you?”
A soft laugh. “She loves what you could have been. Not what you are.”
He gritted his teeth. He hated how easily the words slipped under his skin. He hated how they found the parts of him that never healed.
“You stabbed her,” Dracum continued. “And still you doubt where your loyalty lies.”
Elysande’s grip tightened on his hand, anchoring him. Or trapping him. Hard to tell.
“She’ll survive,” Caelum said, more to himself than to either of them. “She always survives.”
“Perhaps.”
A pause.
“But when she wakes… what you broke tonight cannot be undone.”
His breath hitched.
He wished Dracum was wrong. He prayed—something he hadn’t done in a century—that the bond wasn’t completely destroyed. That somewhere, deep inside Seraphina’s endless storm of power, a small ember still flickered for him.
But he’d seen her eyes.
Not the way they softened earlier. Not the way they used to glow warm when she said his name.
No. He saw them go cold.
He saw trust die.
Elysande pulled her hand back, severing the connection. “Come. We don’t have much time.”
He followed her again, but slower. His footsteps dragged behind hers, like regret had hooked itself around his ankles.
They stopped near a stone archway half swallowed by vines. A portal shimmered faintly, pulsing with dark red veins that reminded him uncomfortably of a heartbeat.
“We’ll lay low until sunrise,” Elysande said. “Then we move for the second stone.”
Caelum stared at the glowing arch but didn’t step through. His chest felt tight—too tight. Like there wasn’t enough room for breath and guilt together.
Elysande frowned. “What now?”
He swallowed. “She trusted me.”
She snorted. “She shouldn’t have.”
That made something inside him snap—not a loud snap, not a big dramatic lightning strike, but a thin, painful crack like glass giving way.
“She shouldn’t have,” Elysande repeated, quieter this time. “The bond between you was a mistake. Fate chose wrong. Dracum is simply correcting it.”
He looked at her, and for a moment—just a moment—he saw not the witch possessed by a demon, but the girl she had once been. The girl who grew up in the shadows of the Vale, who always wanted to be chosen, who always wanted to matter.
But Seraphina had been chosen. Not her.
And Elysande had never forgiven that.
Caelum took a slow breath. “What if fate didn’t choose wrong?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do not start doubting yourself. Or me.”
“I’m not doubting you,” he said.
He was doubting himself. And doubting Dracum. And doubting every step he’d taken in the past hour.
The truth hit him like cold water:
He didn’t want to be here.
He didn’t want to be part of this.
He didn’t want to be the one who stabbed Seraphina, who broke her, who pushed her toward Lucen—the loyal one, the brave one, the one who probably never lost her trust.
His pulse hammered. His throat tightened. His fingers shook around the dagger.
Elysande noticed. “Caelum. Breathe.”
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
He felt everything at once—fear, guilt, the ghost of her hand slipping from his, the echo of her voice whispering I trusted you like a knife turning in his chest.
And that was the moment he broke.
Not when he stabbed her.
Not when he walked away.
Not even when Dracum spoke through Elysande.
He broke now.
Alone.
Standing before a portal that promised power he didn’t want.
Elysande reached for him, impatience sharp in her tone. “We need to go.”
Caelum finally looked back.
Not toward the valley—too far.
Not toward Seraphina—he couldn’t see her.
But toward the direction where he left her lying in the dirt, bleeding because of him.
His voice came out hoarse, low, and almost small.
“Gods help me… what have I done?”
Elysande didn’t answer.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the portal.
And Caelum went—not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t know how to undo the monster he had just become.
The night swallowed them whole.
And behind them, somewhere far, far away…
the bond lay silent.
Broken. Forever