Far away, Cassian remembered Malrik’s words.
Six shards remain. But each one will cost you more than blood.
He looked at Seraphine, pale and still beside him.
He knew, deep in his bones he’d pay any price.
FIFTEEN
SERAPHINE
The fire had long burned low, but Seraphine hadn’t moved.
She lay still under Cassian’s coat, bones aching from the inside out. Her lungs still didn’t want to draw a full breath. Her soul, if she still had one after the Eidolich ritual, felt scorched. Like she’d given it to the Hollow and only gotten half of it back.
Cassian’s hand had held hers through the night. Steady. Warm. Unmoving.
She pretended not to notice.
When the sun broke over the ruins, he stirred first. She heard the rustle, felt the faint shift in weight as he rose, probably to tend the fire or check the perimeter. Always watchful and shielding. And that was the problem.
She couldn’t afford his closeness.
Not now.
Not when her father’s gaze could stretch this far through blood-inked letters and silent messengers. She hadn’t heard from him but knew all too well that he had eyes everywhere and could sense the things she tried harder to hide. Her link to herfather only made that vision stronger; another reason that she knew he chose her for this task.
By nightfall, they were moving again. Her glaive was heavier in her grip. Not from weight—but from the cost of what it had taken to wield it. The others didn’t question her silence. Not even Cassian.
But she saw the way his eyes lingered. Like he was waiting for something she wasn’t sure she could give.
The second shardlay in a valley of broken statues—monuments to kings who’d been buried in fire and then forgotten. The Hollowborn here had grown cunning. Silent. Ambushing them from angles too narrow for steel.
Cassian took a cut across the ribs. Alek almost lost a hand. Seraphine had to burn through the ribcage of a creature stitched from bone and blood-moss to stop it from mauling Brann.
They retrieved the shard.
But she didn’t speak to Cassian for the rest of that day.
Didn’t let him touch her when he tried to stop her hand from shaking.
Didn’t explain when she went to the far edge of the camp to throw up blood and bile.
She didn’t have to.
He knew.
The third shard was hidden inside the Weeping Forest.
The trees there whispered. Not with wind—but withvoices.
She heard her mother’s voice first. Then Vaela’s laughter. Then Cassian—saying her name in a tone she’d never heard him use. Begging.
Cassian had to slap her to bring her out of it. Not hard. But enough to pull her back from the edge.
“You weren’t blinking,” he said, voice sharp. “You weren’tyou.”
She hated how grateful she was.
