The final shard.
He didn’t have a damn clue where it was.
The crack of a footstep behind him made his grip tighten.
He didn’t look. “You’re late.”
“Could say the same to you,” came the reply. A voice he hadn’t heard in years but would’ve known in his sleep.
Roen.
Cassian turned slowly.
The man standing there hadn’t changed much. Same smug half-smile, same too-loose gait, like the world was just something to lean on. But there was something else in his eyes now.
Steel. And sorrow.
Cassian stood, careful not to wake Seraphine. “You still breathing? I’ll call that a miracle.”
Roen laughed quietly, the sound bitter and brittle like something cracked too long ago to mend. “Takes more than a bounty to kill me.”
Cassian didn’t smile. “Even a royal one?”
Roen’s grin faded, eyes dropping for the first time. “You heard, huh?”
Cassian’s jaw clenched. “Hard not to when they start branding your name into execution orders. Saw one pinned to a gate in Aethermoor.” His voice lowered. “Right below mine.”
Roen rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “Yeah. Well. I told myself I was just buying time. But time runs out, Cass.”
“You picked one hell of a side.”
Roen raised his brows. “I didn’t pick a side. I picked survival. Something you used to be pretty damn good at.”
“She’s not a cause,” Cassian snapped, his voice sharp and raw. “And I didn’t pick her because she was the winning hand.”
“No,” Roen said softly. “You picked her because she made you want to stop running.”
The silence between them crackled.
Cassian’s voice dropped to a warning growl. “You said you could help.”
“Ican,” Roen answered. “But not like you think.”
Cassian took a slow step forward. His chest tightened like it already knew what was coming. “Roen?—”
Roen swallowed hard. “I didn’t want to come here. I wasn’t going to. Buthe’s everywhere now, Cass. Your Emperor? He’s in people’s dreams. Their blood. He promised to lift the bounty on my whole line. Said my sister could come out of hiding. Said my name would be cleared if I just…” His voice cracked. “If I just brought you to him.”
Cassian’s stomach dropped like a stone. “So you led them here.”
Roen’s hands shook as he reached inside his coat. “That was the deal.”
Cassian’s shoulders tensed—ready for a blade, a spell, something sharp.
But Roen didn’t pull a weapon.
He pulled out a shard.
Smooth. Dark. And humming with that same low, ancient pulse Cassian had begun to feel in his veins, deep as marrow.
