Six hours until dawn and I spent the first hour just sitting on the roof alone because processing that you were about to be sealed in eternal darkness with primordial evil required some dedicated spiraling time.
The mate bonds were barely holding together at this point—Kael's cracked from when I'd aged him, Riven's strained from watching me die repeatedly, Thorne's pulled so tight it was fraying, Draven's degrading from the clinical assessment that there was no escape.
They were breaking. One by one. And by dawn when the Fae sealed me away they'd shatter completely.
I'd die alone. Be imprisoned alone. Fight The Root alone for eternity.
The thought was worse than the actual dying part somehow.
"You're catastrophizing." Riven's voice came from behind me and I turned to find him standing there with that patient expression that had gotten me through so much.
