“Cassian Veyne.”
Cassian didn’t answer.
The man cleared his throat. “You are to be escorted to the war room. Lady Seraphine awaits.”
Lady Seraphine.Of course.
He didn’t correct the title. Just nodded once, slow and sharp, and followed the steward through the inner sanctum.
He passed relic halls filled with dragonbone armor, blood-pacts sealed in glass, and portraits of Drakar heirs with eyes full of fire and faces that could freeze oceans. He’d never liked this House. Too many crowns. Not enough soul.
They reached the chamber, doors carved from obsidian and veined with molten gold. The steward knocked once and scurried off like smoke on wind.
Cassian didn’t wait for a response. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Seraphine Drakar stood with her back to him, arms folded behind her. Her armor shimmered with whitefire along the seams, glowing faintly against her bronze skin. Her hair, dark as scorched embers, was bound in a braid that draped down the center of her back like a blade.
She didn’t turn.
“You’re late,” she said.
Cassian stepped in fully, let the doors close behind him with a sound like a tomb sealing.
“Didn’t realize I was being timed.”
Now she turned. And godsdamn.
She was sharp edges and steady flame. Eyes like gold coins tossed into a fire. Not beautiful in a soft way—no. Beautiful like a storm at sea. A woman who’d been sharpened until she didn’t know how to be anything but steel.
“Veyne,” she said, voice sharp. “I thought you were taller.”
“Wait’ll I’m not standing in a nest of your daddy’s pet guards. Might gain an inch.”
She didn’t smile. But something twitched at the corner of her mouth—amusement or irritation, he couldn’t tell.
Probably both.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
“Good.”
“I didn’t say that was a compliment.”
Cassian stepped closer, slow and deliberate. The tension between them coiled tight like drawn bowstrings. The chamber flickered as one of the torches guttered, casting moving shadows across her face.
“I heard you’re the one person mad enough to walk the Hollow’s edge and come back breathing.”
Cassian raised a brow. “You heard wrong. I crawled. Barely. But sure—let’s call it breathing.”
“And I heard you burn with a fire that shouldn’t exist.”
He tilted his head. “You sound curious, Princess.”
“I’m not,” she said, too fast.
That earned a grin. “Liar.”
Seraphine exhaled slowly, the movement making the flames on her armor pulse faintly.
