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“Do not do anything stupid.” He grasped my forearm in a strong, respectful grip that I returned.

“No promises.” The corner of my mouth twitched and he huffed a laugh. “If this is a trap and I die, I want you to save her. Take care of her for me.”

Something passed over his face, and his eyes flickered towards his left hand. His Amarta markings were faded with time, but still there, clinging to his skin the way his heart clung to her memory.

He released my grip, absently rubbing the markings like he often did. It was said that losing your bonded was a pain unlike any other. The thought knotted guilt through my chest. Lyra would have to endure it twice because of me. First when I killed Helion, and again when the curse finally dragged me into the darkness.

“Till my last breath, brother, you have my word,” Solas said, a fierce sincerity burning through his words. Something hollowed inside of me. Gratitude and envy tangled together until I could no longer tell them apart. He would live. He could be perfect for Lyra.

“Thank you.”

The words felt painfully small compared to the way my blackened heart ached.

I stepped past them and made my way to the bow where Bryony sat perched on the railing. “My men will be safe from your Sirens?” I asked.

She glanced over her shoulder, the mist weaving through her dark hair as a knowing smile curved her lips. “For now.”

With those two unsettling words, she dove into the waiting sea below. Her body disappeared with a splash that echoed across the cursed waters.

Without hesitation, I threw myself overboard. Icy water crashed over my body, stealing the air from my lungs. I kicked against the vicious current that dragged at me. One arm remained locked around the glass jar, the sand inside suddenly feeling heavier than stone.

Salt invaded my mouth each time the waves shoved me beneath the surface, but I refused to loosen my grip.

When my boots finally found the seabed, I staggered through the shallows, water cascading from my bare chest.

The Whispering Isles were drenched in a thick veil of mist. Black sands stretched endlessly before giving way to large jutting rocks. The blood moon bled through the fog in fractured shafts of crimson light, painting the shoreline as though the island itself had been wounded.

Bryony sat cross-legged upon the shore, dark hair plastered to the shirt Aldric had lent her. She rose the moment she saw me.

“About time,” she said, dusting black sand from her palms. “I was beginning to think the sea had claimed you.”

Without answering, I walked past her.

I did not know her intentions, but I had lived in the darkness long enough to recognise ill intent. My boots sank into the wet black sand, each step leaving behind a trail that the tide eagerly erased.

The bond beneath my ribs flared to life, so violently my breath caught.

Relief crashed through me, sharp enough to sting my eyes.

Lyra.

I felt the cadence of her heart echoing against my own, her anger surging through the bond like a storm beneath the sea. Her scent lingered upon the wind. The smell of salt, florals, and something achingly hers hitting the back of my throat with every breath.

I followed the tugging in my chest into the suffocating fog. The primal urge to rip her throat out warred with the desperate need to grovel at her feet and make her love me as much as I loved her.

It tugged with a desperate certainty now, guiding me through the sheer faces of black rock that made up this nightmare of an island while Bryony walked silently behind me.

My boots came to an abrupt halt. All reason was consumed beneath a tide of instinct.

Helion stood upon a jagged outcrop of black stone, his gaze fixed upon the woman who had stolen every fractured piece of my soul.

Her silver hair spilled through his fist like moonlight, her bound body pressed obscenely close to his own. His fingers rested against her waist as though he had earned the right to touch her.

My molars ground together until pain splintered through my jaw as I fought the onslaught of emotions raging through me.

Lyra struggled against the bindings around her wrists, every desperate movement igniting the hope long buried beneath my ribs. No larger than the flame of a candle, yet bright enough to illuminate every hollow place grief had carved into my soul.

The fractured, rotting thing inside my chest begged her to turn from Helion's light and come home to the darkness she had once promised to drown in with me.