Page 24

TWENTY-FOUR

CASSIAN

T hey came like shadows unbound.

From the cracks in the ceiling, from the walls themselves, the Hollowborn poured in—twisted bodies slick with decay, limbs too long, mouths unhinging with gurgling shrieks.

Cassian reacted first.

“Behind you!”

Seraphine spun, her glaive already aflame, cutting through one before its claws could find her throat. The creature shrieked as it disintegrated, Whitefire unraveling it from the inside out.

Cassian’s sword caught the next one mid-lunge, stormfire flaring up his arm as he pivoted into a brutal strike. Another creature dropped at his feet in a heap of twitching limbs and wet ash.

But there were too many.

One leapt from above, slamming into his back. He rolled, bucking it off, then drove his blade upward, straight into its jaw.

“They’re guarding the shard,” Seraphine shouted, ducking a clawed swipe and retaliating with a burst of flame that incinerated two more. “They know what we came for!”

“No shit!”

Cassian grabbed her wrist mid-step and yanked her sideways as another Hollowborn dove for her legs. She pivoted smoothly, flame trailing behind her like a comet’s tail, and slashed through the beast.

They fought back-to-back, breath ragged, their magic wild and barely controlled in the narrow space.

Cassian’s body screamed from the strain, but he pushed harder. He watched her—how the Whitefire lit her eyes, how she moved like a goddamn warrior queen.

They could survive this.

Together.

“Shard!” she yelled, pointing.

Cassian spotted it—floating in the air above the pedestal, glowing with a pulsing crimson light.

“Go!” she shouted. “I’ll cover you!”

Cassian didn’t argue.

He broke through the thinning horde, slicing through what remained like a storm given flesh. Blood sprayed. Screams echoed.

He leapt, grabbing the shard mid-air as a creature lunged from the side?—

That’s when it hit him.

Hard.

Pain had a voice.

Right now, it was screaming in his chest.

Cassian hit the stone like a comet, the impact cracking his ribs and rattling something deeper. His blade skittered into the dark, just out of reach.

The weight hit.

A Hollowborn pinned him down.

Its face hovered inches from his, its skin stretched taut over a skull too large, too wrong. Eyes—if you could call them that—bulged and glistened, pitch black and hollow.

Its breath smelled like dead memories.

He didn’t have time to scream.

Didn’t have air.

The thing's claws punched into his shoulders, pinning him as if it meant to tear his arms off just for the thrill. Its mouth opened too wide, jaw unhinging with a sickening crack, lined with fangs that pulsed like they were breathing.

It then spoke.

Not in words.

In sound .

Dark, slithering noise poured into Cassian’s skull—wet, hissing syllables that burned his thoughts and warped the corners of his mind. His eyes rolled. His limbs twitched.

The shard. It wanted the shard.

No. It wanted him.

He fought, bucked, snarled. But his strength was slipping, his Stormfire faltering like a dying star. He needed time. He needed her.

The Hollow wasn’t just attacking his body.

It was trying to replace him.

It might have.

If she hadn’t screamed his name.

“ Cassian! ” Seraphine’s voice cracked the haze like thunder.

Whitefire ripped across the chamber—blinding, roaring, holy.

The Hollowborn shrieked as her flame engulfed it. It didn’t burn the way fire should. It unmade. The creature turned to ash on top of him, disintegrating into nothing.

Cassian gasped as air slammed back into his lungs. He rolled over, coughing, shaking, staring up at her.

Seraphine stood over him, armor scorched, hair wild, eyes alight with fury and fear.

“You stupid, reckless son of a—” She dropped to her knees, hands trembling as they hovered above his chest. “Let me—let me fix it?—”

“No. Don’t?—”

But her hands were already glowing.

“Shut up.”

Whitefire burned into him, clean and cruel. He screamed. Again. The second time it wasn’t any easier.

Darkness claimed him.

He woke to the smell of smoke and iron and her.

Cassian blinked up at a cracked ceiling, the glow of the fifth shard hovering nearby, pulsing like a heartbeat. His own chest ached, ribs knitted with heat and magic. He tried to sit.

A firm hand shoved him back down.

“Idiot,” Seraphine muttered, sitting beside him. “You could’ve died.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he rasped.

She didn’t laugh. Just looked at him like she wanted to both strangle and kiss him.

He turned his head, gaze finding the shard. “We got it?”

She nodded. “Barely.”

He exhaled. “Good.”

They sat in silence for a long minute.

She then said, “I saw you, you know.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Before I reached you. You hesitated. You looked at that thing and didn’t move.”

Cassian didn’t answer. Because she was right.

It hadn’t just been fear. It had been something else —something deeper. The whispering.

The pull.

The Hollow didn’t just want his blood. It wanted him.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

Seraphine narrowed her eyes. “You’re a shit liar.”

“Only with you.”

She leaned closer. “What’s going on, Cass?”

He looked at her and saw everything he’d ever wanted. Firelight dancing in her eyes. Anger masking fear. Love she wouldn’t speak aloud.

He couldn’t let her know. Not yet.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said. And that’s when the shadows flickered.

The shard pulsed again. And she was there.

Mirael.

No longer just a memory.

She stood at the far end of the chamber, veiled in black, her Hollowborn body shimmering with coalesced nightmares.

Seraphine hadn’t seen her yet. But he had.

Only him.

Mirael smiled.

“Getting closer, little fire. But you’re still clinging to things you can’t keep.”

He stood slowly, ignoring Seraphine’s confusion.

“You’ve seen your end. You know. Yet still you burn for her.”

He clenched his jaw. “You don’t get to use her against me.”

Mirael tilted her head. “I don’t have to. You’ll do that all on your own.” And then she vanished.

Seraphine touched his arm. “Cass?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. He just picked up the shard. And walked away. Because the voices were louder now. And one of them sounded too much like truth.