He clenched his fists. “Come on,” he muttered. “Where the fuck are you?”
Nothing.
No pulse in his blood. No whisper behind his ribs. The magic inside him stayed quiet—stormfire dim, the Hollow touch coiled deep and still.
It was like a door had closed. And he didn’t know how to open it again.
There were no orders barked. No team left to rally. No Brann. No Alek. No Lira. Just ash and memory and the echo of what they’d lost to get this far.
Cassian and Seraphine were alone. And being hunted.
The moment the first glint of silver armor crested the ridge—cold and ghostlike through the morning fog—he’d known. They weren’t scouts. Weren’t messengers. No flags. No sigils. Just cloaks stitched with runes and eyes like shattered glass.
Executioners.
The Emperor had finally stopped pretending.
“They’ll be on us by nightfall,” Seraphine had said through gritted teeth as they ducked through twisted brush, the scent of ozone thick on the wind.
Cassian didn’t argue. Didn’t say what they both already knew.
The Emperor wasn’t coming for negotiation. He was coming to make an example of them.
His daughter and the boy who wouldn’t stay dead.
Now, they stood at the tree line, the last fingers of dusk creeping through gnarled limbs overhead. No maps. No plans. Just flight. Cassian’s pulse beat hot under his skin, his hand tight around the hilt of his blade.
Still no sign of the last shard. And it gnawed at him.
“I should feel it,” he muttered, more to himself than her.
Seraphine turned toward him, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion in every line of her frame.
“You’re not a fucking compass, Cassian.”
“Ishouldbe,” he snapped. “It’s in my blood, right? The line. The flame. Whatever the hell I am now—why can’t I feel it?”
“You think pushing will help?”
“I think standing here with our asses exposed while I draw a blank is a great way to die.”
She stepped closer. “You think I don’t feel it too? The pressure? The clock ticking down? We’re both bleeding out trying to win a war that shouldn’t be ours alone—so don’t take it out on yourself. Or me.”
Cassian dropped his gaze. Because she was right. And it pissed him off.
She reached for him—slow, steady. Resting her hand on his chest where the Heartblade’s hilt pressed between his shoulder blades. Her voice dropped low.
“I trust you. Even when you don’t.”
The silence stretched.
He exhaled. Rough. Shaky.
“You think he’ll send her after you?” he asked.
She didn’t ask who.
Vaela.
