He stood and rubbed a hand down his face, grit mixing with the day’s sweat and soot. That fire… It was getting harder to hold back. Harder to hide.
He glanced down at the scorched path the Stormfire had left through the rubble. Someone would see it. Someonewouldtalk.
Fuck.
"Come on," he muttered, lifting the boy onto his hip with one arm. "Let's get you outta here before the rest of 'em show up."
They walked through twilight, the boy half-asleep against his shoulder. Cassian's muscles ached, old wounds twinging. He could still feel the Hollowborn’s claws, the memory of death too close. Again.
The kid stirred. “Are you a dragon?”
Cassian snorted. “Not quite.”
“But you burned it. Like real fire. Blue fire.”
“Stormfire,” he said softly. “It’s… special.”
“Cool.”
Cassian chuckled, surprised. “Most folks call it cursed.”
The boy shrugged against his coat. “Still saved me.”
He’d grown up in the back alleys of the Secret Borderlands, where no one saved anyone for free. He’d learned to fight before he learned to read. Magic was survival—dirty, hungry, and always hungry for more. No House. No legacy. Just a name people spat like poison.
Cassian Veyne. The bastard with lightning in his blood and no place to call home.
“Where’s your family?” he asked after a moment.
The boy stiffened.
Cassian sighed. “Right.”
He adjusted the kid’s weight, his gaze scanning the horizon. Veil twilight was creeping in now, and the glow of Aethermoor’s hidden lights shimmered in the far distance.
He dropped the boy off with a traveling medic caravan before dawn. They didn’t ask questions. He didn’t give answers. Just pressed a few coins into a wrinkled hand and said, “Keep him safe.”
Then he turned and walked into the smoke-drenched dawn.
By midmorning, he was back at his hideout. A broken watchtower buried deep in the Borderland ridges, hidden by storm wards and the general stench of old ruins.
He tossed his blade on the stone slab that served as a table and collapsed into a chair with a grunt.
“Stormfire again,” he muttered, staring at his hands.
The lightning still lingered beneath his skin. It always did. Coiled. Waiting.
The bounty had gone sideways. The kid… the power surge…
Too much attention. Too much risk.
He needed to move. Disappear. Again.
But as he leaned back, something sharp clinked beneath him. A messenger’s token—iron etched with a familiar insignia.
House Drakar.
His gut clenched.
