Chap­ter 27—the silence after the storm was deaf­en­ing, set­tling over the manor like a veil of unspo­ken words and frac­tured emo­tions. The rem­nants of Tamlin’s fury lin­gered in the air, a silent tes­ta­ment to the chaos that had erupt­ed with­in these once-tran­quil halls. My eyes traced the shift­ing pat­terns of moon­light against the walls, seek­ing com­fort in its steady indif­fer­ence, yet find­ing none. The weight of what had tran­spired pressed against my chest, an invis­i­ble force that left me hol­low and dis­ori­ent­ed.

Din­ner had come and gone, but I had not the heart to sit at the table and face the wreck­age of what we had become. My sanctuary—the paints, the can­vas­es, the qui­et moments of escape—lay untouched, as if they too had been taint­ed by the storm of emo­tions that had passed through. The house, usu­al­ly alive with whis­pered con­ver­sa­tions and qui­et com­pan­ion­ship, felt life­less, haunt­ed by the echoes of a fury too pow­er­ful to ignore. Every creak­ing floor­board, every sigh of wind against the win­dows, only rein­forced the lone­li­ness set­tling deep in my bones.

The knowl­edge of Amarantha’s loom­ing pres­ence, the shad­ow she cast over Pry­thi­an, had become an inescapable weight. Rhysand’s words had plant­ed a seed of fear with­in me, a real­iza­tion that I had been blind to the greater forces at play. The idea that Tam­lin, a High Lord of unfath­omable strength, was pow­er­less against her sent chills down my spine. What could I—a mere human—possibly do against a force so ancient and ruth­less? The answer clawed at the edges of my mind, the inevitabil­i­ty of it tight­en­ing like a vice around my heart.

Tamlin’s sud­den pres­ence shat­tered my spi­ral of thoughts, his arrival like a breath of wind through suf­fo­cat­ing still­ness. His gold­en eyes, usu­al­ly alight with deter­mi­na­tion, now held some­thing more fragile—resignation, sor­row, and a des­per­a­tion he strug­gled to mask. The weight of unspo­ken truths stretched between us, heavy and suf­fo­cat­ing. The admis­sion of his pow­er­less­ness, of the inevitabil­i­ty of what was to come, made the walls around my heart trem­ble. His need to pro­tect me warred against my unwill­ing­ness to leave him, an impos­si­ble choice set before us like a cru­el joke played by fate.

His hands, once steady and unwa­ver­ing, now trem­bled as they reached for me, as if the very act of touch­ing me would make the real­i­ty of our sep­a­ra­tion more bear­able. The idea that dis­tance was the only way to keep me safe, that leav­ing was the best form of pro­tec­tion, cut through me like a blade. This was no mere parting—this was an exo­dus forced upon us by the whims of pow­er beyond our con­trol. It was a sac­ri­fice nei­ther of us want­ed to make, but one we both knew was nec­es­sary.

For a fleet­ing moment, defi­ance sparked between us, a des­per­ate refusal to let fate dic­tate the end of what we had found in each oth­er. The world out­side could crum­ble, the forces of dark­ness could loom clos­er, but with­in this embrace, with­in the frag­ile space of our con­nec­tion, noth­ing else exist­ed. The press of his lips against mine was not just a kiss—it was a vow, a silent plea against the cru­el­ty of sep­a­ra­tion. If this was to be our last moment, then we would make it count.

The night stretched on, each breath between us mea­sured, each touch mem­o­rized as if etch­ing our pres­ence into the other’s soul. When the dawn final­ly arrived, it car­ried with it the inevitable accep­tance nei­ther of us had want­ed to acknowl­edge. The time for argu­ments had passed, replaced now by qui­et res­ig­na­tion and a hope nei­ther of us dared voice aloud. Even as I pre­pared to leave, as the final words between us remained trapped in my throat, I held onto the promise that this was not the end.

The future loomed uncer­tain, rid­dled with dan­gers I could scarce­ly com­pre­hend, yet even as I stepped away, I car­ried the knowl­edge that love, no mat­ter how frag­ile, could endure even the cru­elest of part­ings. The sun rose behind me, cast­ing a gold­en glow over the manor, over the world I was being forced to leave behind. And though my body moved for­ward, my heart remained teth­ered to him, a silent vow lin­ger­ing in the morn­ing air—a promise of return.