Page 155 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

“She said… if you say it again, she’ll drop you into a volcano.”

There was a beat of silence.

Solei blinked. “Noted.”

Her voice was firm, but the slight blanching of her skin told me she felt the severity of Kaelith’s words.

Then Remy approached, his boots crunching over charred gravel, and gaze flicking between the two of us.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice low.

I turned to him, forcing a casual expression even though my dragon had just described a volcanic execution in detail.

“Oh, you know,” I said, rubbing soot from my sleeve. “Just explaining dragon diplomacy.”

Solei’s gaze shifted to Remy, and the sneer that curled her lip was nothing short of venom. “I trusted you with her.”

Remy’s expression didn’t flinch, but his jaw ticked as he replied, voice like ice drawn from a sheath. “I never lied about what I am.”

“No,” she spat. “You just omitted every damn thing that mattered.”

They stood across from each other like old ghosts in new skin, both trained killers, both born in shadow, and both too stubborn to ever back down.

“You played your part well,” Solei said, folding her arms. “The charming orphan. The dutiful recruit. Thefiancé.”

Remy didn’t blink. “And yet, she fell in love with me anyway.”

“That’s the worst part,” Solei snapped. “You played both sides. And you’re still doing it.”

Silence clung for a moment.

Remy’s lips quirked, just barely. He didn’t deny it.

Solei’s eyes narrowed, as sharp as daggers. “You’ve made powerful enemies, Remand. Ones who remember everything. The fire you lit in Warriath isn’t going to go out quietly. And when the time comes, neither side is going to protect you.”

Her words didn’t sound like a threat.

They sounded like a promise.

Remy looked at her, something unreadable in his gaze.

“I know,” he said softly.

And somehow, that admission held more weight than anything else in the smoking ruins of the Crooked Claw.

Solei turned her full attention to Remy, and in that moment, the mask she always wore, the cold detachment, the assassin’s calm, fractured. What rose in its place was pure, burning fury.

“If you touch her again,” she hissed, each word sharper than the last, “you are dead. And I don’t care what Cyran says.”

Remy’s fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles turning bone-white, but he didn’t speak.

“She isn’t part of this game,” he said finally, voice low and rough, his gaze flicking to me.

Solei’s laugh was humorless and bitter. “Then you shouldn’t have touched her.You brought her into this, not me.”

Remy opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a step forward.

“I know exactly what you did,” she said, voice trembling now, not with weakness, but with a rage that had been bottled up too long. “And you will pay for it.”