He was halfway through turning back to warn her when the first scream echoed—muffled but distinct. Female. Angry.
Seraphine.
He didn't think. Didn’t breathe. He justmoved.
By the time he reached the edge of camp, it was already too late.
They had her.
Shackles. Veil-silk blindfold. Suppression cuffs at her wrists, inked with sigils meant to mute fireborn magic.
She stood tall anyway.
Cassian could see her mouth moving as they dragged her. Defiant. Proud. Probably cursing them six ways to the moon. But her fists trembled. And it broke something in him.
He knew better than to charge in. Not now. Not like this. So he fell back into the trees. Waited. Tracked them through shadow.
As he followed them, he saw that the makeshift prison was little more than a sealed tent warded with blood runes and silence glyphs. But glyphs couldn’t hide the pulse of magic. Couldn’t hideher.
Cassian stayed out of sight, memorizing every patrol rotation. Every lapse. Every weakness. Then, when the moons shifted and the guards grew sluggish, he moved.
No sound. Just shadow and grit and the icy calm of a man with something to lose.
He slit the back flap of the tent with his dagger and slipped inside.
Seraphine sat cross-legged on the ground, chin lifted, eyes closed behind the blindfold. Her cuffs glowed faintly. She didn’t flinch as he approached. But her voice was a rasp of relief.
“Took you long enough.”
Cassian grinned, crouching before her. “What, no ‘thank you for risking life and limb’?”
She turned her head toward him. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a dumbass.”
“And you’re welcome.”
He sliced the cuffs with a whisper of Stormfire, careful not to scorch her skin.
The sigils fizzled out with a hiss. Her flame ignited instantly—white and seething beneath her skin.
He tugged the blindfold off and met her eyes.
She looked like a star ready to explode. She surged forward—and he thought, for a second, she might hit him. Instead, she grabbed his face and kissed him, hard.
When she pulled back, breath ragged, she muttered, “Next time you leave without a word, I’ll kill you.”
“Deal.”
They snuck out through the same tear he’d made, and it wasn’t until they’d cleared two hills and a ridge that she turned to him.
“You’re insane.”
He glanced sideways. “You say that like it’s news.”
She snorted, then sobered.
