Page 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

CASSIAN

B reath came like broken glass.

Cassian gasped, lungs seizing on air that felt too thick, too sharp. His eyes snapped open—but the world wasn’t right.

The shadows were brighter. The fire, quieter. The darkness, alive.

He coughed hard, body buckling. Every nerve burned. Every muscle screamed like it had been torn and rewoven with wire. And through the agony, he heard it—her voice. Ripping through the haze like a lifeline.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

There she was.

Seraphine.

Hair wild, skin smeared with ash and blood, her cheeks stained with tears she never let anyone else see. Her hands cradled his face like he was something sacred. Fragile. Breakable.

He managed half a smile. “D’you always cry this much when I nap?”

A sob broke in her throat—half-laugh, half-fury.

“You bastard.” She punched his shoulder. Gently. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

He closed his eyes, dragging another breath into ruined lungs. “You mean die? That one wasn’t exactly voluntary.”

“You let them take you.”

“I let you live.”

“Don’t you dare turn that into some heroic speech.”

Cassian’s smile faded. Because the pain in her voice wasn’t just grief. It was betrayal.

He looked down. At the burn across his chest that wasn’t a burn. At the shard still pressed against his ribs, glowing faintly. At his fingers—where the fire danced along his knuckles in pulsing blue light.

Beneath it all— shadow.

Moving under his skin.

Not Hollow.

Him.

He sat up slowly, ignoring the scream in his spine.

Seraphine moved to steady him, but he waved her off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Barely.”

Cassian didn’t answer. Because he didn’t know what to say.

The magic inside him was different. He could feel it.

Stormfire still burned—but now it hummed in tandem with something deeper. Something colder. It didn’t feel wrong. It felt familiar.

He flexed his hand and watched the flame curl into his palm. It shifted in color—white, then blue, then black edged in silver. The shadow wrapped around the fire like a shroud.

“Gods,” he whispered.

Seraphine stepped in front of him, kneeling.

“I called Malrik,” she said quietly.

Cassian looked up. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I had to.”

“I was already gone?—”

“You weren’t.” Her voice cracked. “You never were. I felt you. Even through the fire. Even through the Hollow. I felt you. ”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I am now.”

She leaned closer. “You’re mine. That’s enough.”

He wanted to believe her. But something had changed.

He didn’t feel Hollowed. Not exactly. But part of the Veil had stuck. Clung to him. Pulled something from him and left something else behind.

He wasn’t just fire anymore. He was fire and shadow.

He was Drakar blood and Hollow echo.

He was a weapon reforged in sacrifice.

“I saw something,” he murmured, barely above a whisper.

Seraphine stilled.

“In the dark. When it took me. A place where everything was memory. Where the Hollow fed not just on power—but on love. On you. ”

Her breath caught.

“I heard your name. Over and over. Like it was trying to pull me back. But not to you. To use me.”

“And you came back?”

His gaze found hers, fire dancing in his irises like candlelight fighting wind.

“I came back because you called.”

They sat in silence in the scent of blood and stone. The weight of everything unsaid pressing between them.

Seraphine touched his face again. This time, slower. Like she was still convincing herself he was real.

“You carry both now,” she said softly. “The fire. The shadow.”

“Yeah.”

“And it doesn’t scare you?”

“It should. ” He chuckled dryly. “But it feels like I was always meant to.”

Seraphine nodded. “Then we’ll use it.”

He blinked. “We?”

“I didn’t bring you back just to watch you brood. We’ve still got a blade to reforge. And a world to keep from falling apart.”

He laughed and then winced. “Shit. Okay. But fair warning—if I randomly combust, I’m blaming your magic.”

“You can blame my foot in your ass if you try dying on me again.”

He smiled, and this time, it reached his eyes.

But deep down he knew the shadow inside him wasn’t done whispering.

Neither was the Hollow.