He swore under his breath and shifted his weight. The grass crackled beneath his boot. He was supposed to wait, watch, confirm the kill zone. Do it clean. Walk away with coin and no questions.
But godsdammit, he had a soft spot for screaming kids.
He slipped down the ridge, body low, steps silent despite the rubble. His long coat flared behind him in the rising wind, the dragonsteel clasps clinking like chimes for the dead. Stormclouds boiled overhead. They always did when his blood stirred too fast.
Easy,he told himself.Just a kid. In and out. No fire.
Yeah. Like that ever worked.
The station's interior was a collapsed mess of charred beams and warped stone. He scanned the shadows, ears straining. The smell hit him first—wet death and scorched magic. Hollowborn.
And then he saw it.
It had once been a man. Maybe. Now it was just skin stretched wrong, bones growing where bones shouldn’t, its face split down the center like a cracked mask. Veins pulsed with black light beneath its translucent skin, and its eyes—void-black with no white—fixed on something behind the wreckage.
Cassian followed the gaze.
The kid—barely ten winters, limbs trembling, grime-streaked face wet with tears—clutched a jagged stick like it could stop death.
Cassian didn’t think. He moved.
The Hollowborn lunged, and Cassian was already there, blade out, parrying the blow with a grunt. The force rattled through his arm, the creature stronger than its mangled form suggested.
"You don't touch kids," Cassian growled.
It shrieked. The sound was wrong—like metal grinding bone.
They fought fast. Ugly. Cassian ducked a clawed swing, jammed his knee into the thing’s gut, spun behind it, and slashed deep into its spine. It screeched and twisted unnaturally, trying to latch onto him.
His blade wasn’t enough. Not for this one.
Cassian felt it then—deep in his chest, like a storm trying to escape.
“No,” he hissed. “Not here. Not?—"
But the Hollowborn lunged again, and instinct won.
Stormfire ripped through his veins like a scream.
It burst from his hands, raw and wild—lightning laced with white-blue flame, searing the air with ozone. It hit the creature square in the chest and exploded it into bone dust and shadows, burning the remnants into nothing.
Silence followed. Even the wind held its breath.
The kid stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open.
Cassian panted, hands trembling as the last flickers of Stormfire danced across his skin. He turned away, jaw tight.
"You alright?" he asked gruffly.
The kid nodded mutely, still clutching the stick.
Cassian crouched and gently pried it from his fingers. “Not much of a sword, kid.”
“I—I thought it might help,” the boy mumbled.
“It did,” Cassian lied. “You slowed it down.”
He scanned the ruins again, but they were clear. For now.
