If Malrik’s fragmented memories were more than just twisted relics of the past—thenCassianwasn’t just part of the weapon meant to seal the Hollow.
Hewas the sacrifice.
The stormfire in his blood wasn’t just a fluke of fate. It was a tether. A link between what had been lost and what was coming. The forgotten prince of a cursed bloodline. The spark to awaken the blade.
The price to end it all.
Malrik’s words haunted her:“The blade does not seal the Hollow. It chooses the one who will.”
She’d assumed it meant her. But the blade had begun to pulse inhispresence. Reacting. Resonating.
If that meant what she feared it did—she might be the one who had to end him.
To wield the Heartblade against the man she loved, and drive it into the source of the Hollow—into him—to keep the world from unraveling.
Her chest ached with it. And gods help her. She didn’t know if she could.
She watched the slow, steady rise of his chest as he slept, and whispered the only prayer she still remembered.
“Let it be me.”
Let it be her who paid the price.
Because if it came down to Cassian— She’d burn the world before she watched it take him.
TWENTY-SIX
CASSIAN
The sky cracked before the earth did.
Cassian tasted lightning on the wind before the first scream echoed through the mountainside—Hollowborn.Too close. Too many.
The weight of the sixth shard pressed against his hip, its magic pulsing in time with his heartbeat. It didn’t just hum anymore—itached,bleeding through his skin like it was part of him now. Familiar. Dangerous. Calling.
Just liketheywere.
He glanced up the slope. Seraphine was ahead, silent, a silhouette carved from war and fire. Her glaive strapped tight to her back, her jaw locked in that way that meant she’d seen something she couldn’t yet say. She moved like she was holding herself together with thread.
She hadn’t spoken much since her vision. Since her confession. Since she’d looked at him like he was already gone.
Maybe… she’d been right to.
Gods,he thought,I didn’t want it to be true.
But it was. And time was a noose tightening around both their throats.
They were down tohours.
He couldn’t wait anymore.
Because it wasn’t just the prophecy repeating itself in the visions.
It was thefeeling.
The way the shard responded tohimmore than her. The way the Hollow whisperedhisname louder every night. The way Malrik had gone quiet after handing him that last sliver of truth.
“The blade chooses the one who will seal it.”
