So she didn’t.
Not until that moment by the geyser.
Steam curled around her like smoke. Her shoulder throbbed with phantom ache. And she felt him before he spoke.
“You planning to vanish,” Cassian asked, “or just need space to fall apart?”
She took a breath, unable to ignore him any longer. “He knows.”
Cassian didn’t ask who. He just nodded once. “Zareth.”
“He suspects something.”
“I’m not exactly good at hiding.”
She turned toward him. “This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not laughing.”
For a long moment, they just stood there.
Not Princess and mercenary. Not heir and pawn. Just Seraphine and Cassian.
Two people caught in a storm they didn’t start—but might not survive.
In that stillness, as their fingers brushed and the steam turned gold in the dying sun, she wondered:
What would she choose, if it ever came to it?
Duty? Or him?
SIXTEEN
CASSIAN
The steam hadn’t even faded from Seraphine’s skin when Cassian realized he had to leave.
Not for good. Not forever. Just… for a night.
Long enough to chase the ghost that had been scratching at the back of his skull ever since they found the third shard. The one buried beneath that petrified forest with roots like bones and wind that spoke in other people’s voices.
There’d been a whisper then. Not just wind. Not just hallucination.
“You don’t burn like them.”
He hadn’t told her.
But it hadn’t left him since.
Tonight, after watching her stiffen when their hands brushed, after seeing that look in her eyes—that split-second panic when she forgot to guard her expression—he knew she was crumbling inside.
If he didn’t figure out the truth of what the hell was insidehim, then he had no business trying to catch her when she fell.
So, while the others slept, while the last coals hissed low, Cassian slipped from camp.
He left no tracks. No fire. Only silence.
The Hollow was thicker out here.
