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THIRTY

CASSIAN

C assian couldn’t feel the last shard. And it was driving him insane.

Seraphine kept looking at him like he was supposed to know —like he’d done it before, so why the hell couldn’t he do it now?

He stood near theclearing where they’d camped, boots buried in ash, eyes scanning a horizon that didn’t have answers. Wind tugged at the edges of his coat. The Heartblade was sheathed at his back, a heartbeat against his spine. Whole. Burning. Waiting.

But it wasn’t finished. And neither was he.

He clenched his fists. “Come on,” he muttered. “Where the fuck are you?”

Nothing.

No pulse in his blood. No whisper behind his ribs. The magic inside him stayed quiet—stormfire dim, the Hollow touch coiled deep and still.

It was like a door had closed. And he didn’t know how to open it again.

There were no orders barked. No team left to rally. No Brann. No Alek. No Lira. Just ash and memory and the echo of what they’d lost to get this far.

Cassian and Seraphine were alone. And being hunted.

The moment the first glint of silver armor crested the ridge—cold and ghostlike through the morning fog—he’d known. They weren’t scouts. Weren’t messengers. No flags. No sigils. Just cloaks stitched with runes and eyes like shattered glass.

Executioners.

The Emperor had finally stopped pretending.

“They’ll be on us by nightfall,” Seraphine had said through gritted teeth as they ducked through twisted brush, the scent of ozone thick on the wind.

Cassian didn’t argue. Didn’t say what they both already knew.

The Emperor wasn’t coming for negotiation. He was coming to make an example of them.

His daughter and the boy who wouldn’t stay dead.

Now, they stood at the tree line, the last fingers of dusk creeping through gnarled limbs overhead. No maps. No plans. Just flight. Cassian’s pulse beat hot under his skin, his hand tight around the hilt of his blade.

Still no sign of the last shard. And it gnawed at him.

“I should feel it,” he muttered, more to himself than her.

Seraphine turned toward him, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion in every line of her frame.

“You’re not a fucking compass, Cassian.”

“I should be,” he snapped. “It’s in my blood, right? The line. The flame. Whatever the hell I am now—why can’t I feel it?”

“You think pushing will help?”

“I think standing here with our asses exposed while I draw a blank is a great way to die.”

She stepped closer. “You think I don’t feel it too? The pressure? The clock ticking down? We’re both bleeding out trying to win a war that shouldn’t be ours alone—so don’t take it out on yourself. Or me.”

Cassian dropped his gaze. Because she was right. And it pissed him off.

She reached for him—slow, steady. Resting her hand on his chest where the Heartblade’s hilt pressed between his shoulder blades. Her voice dropped low.

“I trust you. Even when you don’t.”

The silence stretched.

He exhaled. Rough. Shaky.

“You think he’ll send her after you?” he asked.

She didn’t ask who.

Vaela.

“I think he already has. She was probably first in line to offer her services, especially after the tunnel. And I think Varros has his eyes laid on you.” she said.

The Emperor didn’t see a daughter. He saw a threat.

Cassian? He’d always been expendable.

“You know where we have to go,” Seraphine said, voice like flint.

He nodded. “The Wyrdlands.”

They turned as one toward the mountains—jagged peaks like broken teeth, veiled in mist and old magic. No one sane traveled there. Time bent. Spirits whispered. Reality cracked.

They ran.

No fire or sound.

Seraphine kept pace just behind him, her breath steady, her steps precise. They didn’t speak. Couldn’t. The woods watched. Every twig cracked too loud. Every gust of wind sounded like a blade being drawn.

Cassian led them through a gully that split open into deadened rock.

The Veil was thinner here—he felt it in his lungs. Magic clung to him, not like a weapon, but like a second skin. The Hollow inside him didn’t stir.

But it watched.

“You’ve been here before?” Seraphine asked as they scaled the ridge.

He nodded. “Thirteen. My mother brought me here. Said the land remembers more than the living do.”

“What were you looking for?”

He hesitated. “A place to bury the truth.”

She looked at him sideways. “Did you find it?”

“No. But it found me.”

They didn’t speak again as the hill broke into a high overlook. Below lay the valley—black stone, rivers moving like molten oil, old ruins poking through the mist like grave markers.

Cassian stopped.

The shadows here remembered him. He could feel them whisper. Not as a warning. As a welcome.

Seraphine drew up beside him. Her hand found his. Not out of fear. Something heavier.

He turned to her.

There it was—in her eyes.

She knew.

If they found the shard, if the blade completed—something else needed to be sacrificed to seal the Hollow. Even after everything.

She didn’t speak the fear. She didn’t have to.

He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles gently.

“I’m not letting him win,” he said.

She swallowed. “Neither am I.”

The wind howled behind them. Far off—but gaining.

They weren’t going to get a second warning.

They’d chosen each other.

Now they had to survive it.