The tears kept him from seeing clearly, kept him from breathing properly, kept him from thinking logically. Will squeezed his eyes shut and pressed one hand against the wall for balance, the other closed into a fist against his hollowly beating heart. He couldn't stop the pain, and couldn't keep himself from looking away.
There she was, walking down a path of white rose petals in a white dress with gold trim. There she was, with a delicate bouquet of lilies in her hands and a veil draped over her face. There she was, about to marry his best friend, his parabatai. Tessa, the girl he loved - loved more than anything he thought capable of loving, worthy of loving. Tessa. There was no other name so beautiful. No other woman so breathtaking, an angel so pure and so real. And there she was, leaving him, leaving him without so much as a glance back, her gaze focused solely on James.
Will gasped at the emptiness that rocked him, and he fell to his knees. A single tear escaped, and he looked up into the ceiling of the great cathedral, feeling utterly hopeless and lost. "I have truly lost everything," he whispered.