“I’m not just some rogue with a talent for flame,” he went on. “I’m Stormfire. The last of it. A forgotten line buried by House Drakar after the war with the Hollow first began.”
Lira’s mouth parted slightly. “That’s not possible. That line?—”
“Was erased,” Cassian said. His voice was flat. Final. “By Seraphine’s ancestors.”
Alek stared at him. “What does this mean?”
Cassian laughed, bitter. “It means I’m the very thing this mission was supposed to destroy.”
Seraphine’s jaw clenched. Not in confusion.
But recognition.
Cassian saw it—the flicker in her eyes. The way she didn’t flinch because the words were new, but because theyweren’t.Because she alreadyknew.
“You knew,” he said, quietly, venom in his voice now. “Didn’t you?”
She didn’t deny it.
“Who told you?” he asked, not caring that the others were watching. “Or did you read it in some dusty Drakar record and decide to keep it to yourself?”
Seraphine stepped forward, chin high, fire sparking in her gaze. “I didn’tknow.Not fully. But I suspected.”
He laughed. It was sharp. Ugly. “And you didn’t think I deserved to hear that? Fromyou?”
“I was protecting you,” she said.
Cassian’s hands curled into fists. “You were protectingyourself.”
Lira shifted uncomfortably beside the fire, clearly wishing she was anywhere else. Brann looked like he was about to puke. Even Alek’s usual stoicism fractured.
Cassian’s voice dropped, rougher now. “You stood there and watched me bleed for this mission. Fight for it.Kill for it.And you knew I was the blade they buried.”
“I just found out when you had left! Everyn and Lucien showed me when I was trying to understand how you could just take off. And besides, it’s not that simple,” Seraphine snapped.
“It never is with you, is it?” he shot back. “Duty before truth. Mission before mercy. What happens when you finally have to choose?”
Her silence said everything.
Cassian’s shoulders sagged like something heavy had just settled across them.
He turned without another word and walked out of the firelight, leaving the others in stunned, uncomfortable quiet.
No one followed him. Not even her. Because now they all knew.
He wasn’t just their weapon. He was their mistake. And no one knew what to do with him anymore.
He wandered back toward the edge of the trees, needing space to breathe.
That was when the pain hit.
It started in his spine—sharp, electric. Then behind his eyes, like something clawing for purchase inside his skull.
He dropped to his knees, groaning.
Then the vision struck.
He stood in a field of shadow. Everything was gray. Dead.
