Page 35

H argen

The cold concrete doesn’t bother me anymore. Vanya’s head rests on my chest, her hair spread across my ribs like spun silver. The single bulb overhead casts harsh shadows, but they can’t touch this moment. Can’t diminish what just happened between us.

I don’t recall when we sank to the floor. Her breathing has steadied. Not sleep—just contentment. A fleeting peace that feels stolen from a timeline where we were never separated, never broken.

I trace the curve of her shoulder. The mark there is new to me—a scar I don’t recognize running three inches across the pale surface. “When did this happen?”

She follows my touch with her eyes. “Assassination attempt. Six years ago. Syndicate traditionalist who thought the Shadowhand was going soft.”

Another reminder of everything I’ve missed. Everything stolen from us.

“We have a lot to catch up on,” I say, the understatement almost making me laugh.

Her chuckle vibrates against my sternum, warm and alive. “Where would we even start? With how you’ve spent your years? Or how I’ve spent mine?”

The guard’s boots echo down the corridor outside, a grim reminder of our borrowed time. Morning will bring either rescue or execution. The space between feels impossibly fragile.

“I watched over Lila Rossewyn for twenty years,” I offer. The safest of my truths.

“The witch,” she says, turning her head slightly to look up into my face. Her eyes catch the harsh overhead light, turning them to pale fire. “I knew about that. I had a file on both of you.”

Something cold settles in my gut. “You were monitoring me?”

“Not me personally. But yes, the Syndicate kept tabs.” She traces a pattern across my ribs, her touch feather-light. “It was the only way I could see your face. Those surveillance photos. I stole one once.”

The idea of Vanya—the feared Shadowhand—secretly stealing a photograph of me like a lovesick teenager should be absurd. Instead, it breaks something open inside me.

“She reminded me of you,” I say, needing to offer something in return. “Lila. That same stubborn resilience when the world tried to break her.”

Vanya’s fingers go still over my heart. “You helped her escape.”

Not a question. She already knows the answer.

“I did.” I stare at the water stain blooming across the ceiling, shaped vaguely like a dragon in flight. “Each year, I saw more clearly what the Syndicate was becoming. What they were willing to do. Orders that made my stomach turn.”

Her hand presses flat against my chest, as if seeking my heartbeat. “You only know the half of it. I’ve signed some of those orders.”

I tilt her chin up, meeting her eyes. “You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” She pulls away, sitting up with her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. The prison uniform hangs loose on her frame, revealing the sharp angles of collarbones that weren’t so prominent in my memories.

The intimacy breaks, replaced by something rawer.

“There’s so much you don’t know, Hargen. So much I’ve done—”

“Then tell me.” I reach for her hand, finding it cold despite our shared warmth moments ago. “All of it.”

The silence stretches between us, filled only by the distant sounds of the facility—the mechanical hum of ventilation, the occasional metallic clang of doors, the reminder that we are caged.

Her eyes drift to the door, then to the surveillance camera in the corner, whose red light has been dark since Vex left us.

Did he give us this privacy to make the pain of tearing us apart that much harder?

Probably.

“I never wanted you to think I was dead,” she finally says.

There’s weight behind the words, like she’s carrying more than guilt. Like she’s practiced this confession a thousand times in her mind.

“What really happened that day?” I ask, though part of me fears the answer.

Her grip tightens until her knuckles go white. “They gave me an ultimatum. Reveal my lover’s identity or face execution.”

She’s hinted at this before, but hearing it stated so plainly still leaves me reeling.

“They knew about us,” I say, because I know that much. But the rest… that’s a story she never shared with me.

“After my clan elders learned of us…” Her voice goes flat, distant, the way survivors sound when recounting trauma.

“They demanded I name you. Said they’d be ‘merciful’ if I cooperated.

” A bitter laugh escapes her. “I knew it was a lie. They were going to kill you, regardless. I couldn’t even contemplate that. ”

“You chose the flames rather than expose me.” My voice sounds strange in my own ears, choked with a mixture of awe and horror.

She meets my stare unflinchingly. “There was no choice to make.”

Jesus Christ. All these years, I thought her death was punishment for our forbidden love. Never imagined she died protecting me from her own people. The weight of that sacrifice settles over me.

“Cassia approached me the night before.” Vanya’s words pull me back from the edge of that abyss. “She found me in my cell. Had others with her. Dragons who saw what the Syndicate was becoming.”

“Others?” I sit up straighter, the concrete cold against my bare back.

“A small network. They’d been watching the leadership for years, documenting the shift toward extremism.

” She traces the edge of a concrete block with her finger, nail catching on the rough surface.

“Cassia proposed something impossible. Chemical flames that mimicked dragon fire. Projection magic to hide my escape.”

The pieces snap together in my mind, revealing the deception in stark clarity.

“I felt your grief through our bond.” Her voice cracks like thin ice. “It nearly broke me. Standing in the shadows, watching you from a distance.”

My grief. The words don’t seem strong enough to encompass the anguish. The months spent barely functioning. The years spent moving through life like a ghost. The blade I held to my own throat one night before duty to our kind stopped me.

“Why didn’t you reach out?” The question isn’t accusatory—it’s raw need. “Let me know somehow?”

“I wanted to. God, Hargen, there were nights I almost—” She shakes her head, eyes bright with unshed tears. “But they were watching you too closely. Any contact would have exposed everything. Would have gotten both of us killed.”

I pull her back against me, needing the contact, needing to feel her solid and real in my arms. “How long were you hidden?”

“Five years. Cassia had safe houses, allies who could be trusted.” She relaxes into my embrace, her back against my chest, my arms encircling her waist. “When we found out I was pregnant, they closed ranks. Protected me.”

Pregnant. Our daughter growing inside her while her own family was ready to kill her. The miracle of Ember’s existence suddenly seems even more impossible.

“Motherfuckers,” I spit out, the fury suddenly overwhelming. My arms tighten around her protectively, decades too late.

The cell feels colder now, the shadows deeper. A guard passes outside, boots heavy on concrete. A reminder that our enemies still surround us, that dawn brings either salvation or death.

“The Syndicate wasn’t always like this,” she continues, her voice low enough that only I can hear her. “It began as protection for the clanless, the last of dying bloodlines. Dragons who’d lost everything and needed shelter.”

“What changed?” I press my lips to her temple, tasting salt and prison soap.

“Radical elements gradually took control. Purists led by families like the Vex.” Her fingers find mine, interlacing. “They dream of dragons ruling as they once did, no matter the cost to anyone else.”

Including their own people, apparently.

The thought must show on my face because she nods in grim agreement.

“The previous Shadowhand died under mysterious circumstances,” Vanya says, her tone suggesting those circumstances weren’t mysterious to her. “Cassia saw an opportunity.”

“She suggested you take the position?” I find myself tracing the outline of her spine through the thin fabric of her shirt.

“The Shadowhand conducts the most sensitive assignments for the Ivory League. It comes with autonomy, access to classified information.” A bitter smile curves her lips. “And the masks—the Ivory League’s signature—meant no one would know who I really was.”

The audacity takes my breath away. “You became the most vocally purist member to hide what you were really doing.”

“The safest place to hide was at the very top of the organization hunting us.” She turns in my arms, her eyes meeting mine with an intensity that burns. “For all these years, I’ve walked among the people who want me dead. Signed orders I hated. Watched atrocities I couldn’t prevent.”

Her hands come up to frame my face, fingers trembling slightly. “Do you understand what that does to someone, Hargen? How it hollows you out from the inside?”

“But you prevented others,” I say, catching her wrists gently. I can feel her pulse racing beneath my thumbs.

“Some. Not enough.” The weight of those years shows in her eyes, in the fine lines etched at their corners that weren’t there before. “Every compromise felt like losing another piece of myself. Until I wasn’t sure who was left beneath the mask.”

I understand that feeling. The slow erosion of principle in service to survival. The way you wake up one day to find yourself a stranger in your own skin.

A distant alarm sounds somewhere in the facility, then goes silent. We both tense, listening for approaching footsteps, for any sign our time has been cut short. Nothing comes.

“The Craven clan,” I say when the silence returns, the name landing between us with weight. “They’re a particular obsession for the Syndicate.”

“The Syndicate sees them as everything they hate. Dragons who’ve thrived by adapting instead of demanding submission.” She pauses, eyes darting to the door again. “They’re planning to seize Craven territory, eventually. After they deal with more immediate concerns.”

“I’ve met them recently.” I lift a hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “They’re nothing like what the Syndicate believes.”

Her eyebrows lift, curiosity momentarily replacing the haunted look in her eyes. “Oh?”

“They’re building something sustainable.

Community rather than empire.” I think of Viktor’s measured approach, his careful balance of idealism and pragmatism.

The way he’s created a sanctuary for outcasts and misfits.

“And the Aurora Collective operates differently than either the Syndicate or traditional clans.”

Something shifts in her expression. Hope, maybe. Or recognition of a possibility she’d never considered.

“Tell me about Ember,” she says suddenly, her voice softening on our daughter’s name. “How is she adapting? Is she angry with me for sending her away?”

Our daughter.

The words still feel surreal, a miracle I’m struggling to fully comprehend. “She’s extraordinary, Vanya. I see you in everything she does—the way she tilts her head when she’s thinking, the slight smile she tries to hide when she’s amused.”

Vanya’s face softens, the years and worry falling away for a moment. “She set the curtains on fire trying to make them ‘prettier’ when she was seven. Turned them all shades of blue and purple until they ignited.”

I laugh despite everything, the sound strange in this grim place. “She nearly did the same thing to the tablecloths in the cafeteria. Something about the color being ‘tragic.’ Viktor had to intervene before she redecorated the entire facility.”

“She’s always had opinions about aesthetics.” Vanya’s smile is genuine now, reaching her eyes and transforming her face. “Strong ones.”

“She reminds me of you. That same core of steel beneath the surface.” I smooth her hair back. “And she picks things up so fast. Three days with a spellbook and she was creating modifications even Viktor hadn’t considered.”

“Smart girl.” Pride colors her voice.

“Takes after her mother.”

We fall into comfortable silence, bodies curved toward each other. Outside our cell, footsteps echo as guards make their rounds. But here, in this stolen moment, we could be anywhere. We could be the people we might have been without the forced separation.

The silence stretches, comfortable but increasingly heavy with unspoken fears.

“If we survive this…” I begin, unable to finish the thought.

“We’ll find somewhere. The three of us.” Her voice carries quiet determination that doesn’t quite mask the uncertainty beneath. “Somewhere they can’t reach.”

The weight of “if” hangs between us. Tomorrow brings execution or rescue, with no guarantees either way. The red light on the camera remains dark—a small mercy that allows us this moment of honesty.

“Viktor is probably working on something right now,” I say, needing to believe it’s true. “He has resources. People who owe him favors.”

“So does Cassia. She’s probably working from inside.” Vanya nestles closer, her body fitting against mine as perfectly as it did hours ago, as perfectly as it did twenty-one years ago. “She’s had contingencies in place for years.”

Not much to pin hopes on. A progressive dragon leader who prefers diplomacy and a Syndicate researcher walking a tightrope between loyalty and treason. But it’s something. It’s more than we had yesterday.

Exhaustion creeps in at the edges, the adrenaline of our reunion finally fading. Vanya’s breathing slows, her body growing heavier against mine. Sleep calling despite the circumstances, despite the execution that awaits unless something changes.

“I never thought I’d have this again,” she whispers, words slurring slightly as consciousness begins to slip. “You. Us.”

I tighten my arms around her, my cheek pressed to the top of her head. Whatever happens tomorrow, I need her to know something… something I should have made sure she heard every day we were together.

“I never stopped loving you, Vanya Arrowvane. Not for a single day.”

Her response comes out on a sigh as sleep claims her: “I love you, too. Whatever happens, remember that.”

I watch her face relax in the harsh overhead light, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the fan of her lashes against skin, the slight furrow between her brows that remains even in sleep. Even here, facing execution, I feel more alive than I have in decades.

Because she’s here. Because our daughter exists. Because sometimes, against all odds, love survives even the worst betrayals—those done to us and those we commit ourselves.

Outside, the facility begins to stir with the first signs of dawn shift change. Distant voices, the clang of metal on metal. Time slipping away.

I close my eyes and let myself hope. Not because hope is rational, but because it’s the only weapon we have left.