Page 15

FIFTEEN

LUCIEN

T he tension that swept through the ruins after the wind shifted didn’t fully break.

But nothing came, not yet.

No monsters. No spies.

Just the sharp silence of four predators testing each other’s teeth in a room built for war.

Lucien stood slightly behind Evryn, watching her back, watching the heirs. Watching the shadows shift like they might speak if he stood still long enough.

Seraphine’s eyes narrowed toward the horizon, then back to Lucien. “We’ll move at dawn.”

Calder didn’t move at all, but his voice was solid. “This valley isn’t safe for long.”

Lucien nodded. “I’ll keep her out of sight.”

Seraphine looked at Evryn again, studying her like a general mapping out terrain. “You’re raw. Untrained. But not untested.”

Evryn raised a brow. “Was that a compliment?”

“It was an observation.”

Evryn smirked.

Lucien hated how much he noticed that smirk.

Calder finally turned fully toward Lucien, slow and deliberate. “We’ll be in touch.”

It wasn’t a threat. Not quite. But Grimhart didn’t do casual farewells.

Lucien inclined his head once.

Seraphine said nothing else. She simply stepped back into the veil-carved arch where the sky thinned, Calder flanking her. One blink, and they were gone—faded into mist like ghost-kissed shadows.

Silence dropped like stone.

Evryn sat again near the edge of the circle, rubbing her thumb along a weather-smoothed shard of obsidian.

Lucien didn’t sit. He watched her. He didn’t like what the summit had awakened.

Not in them.

In him.

She fell asleep before the fire finished dying.

Exhaustion. Or escape.

He stood above her, jaw tight, shadows coiling in lazy arcs around his boots. His body begged for rest, but his mind wouldn’t quiet.

She was safer here. For now.

And he could leave.

He could walk away. Let the heirs take over. Let her fate fall into other hands. She wanted to lead, didn’t she? Wanted truth? Then let her find it without him screwing it up further.

He turned to leave. But before he crossed the threshold, her voice cut through the quiet.

“You were really going to go?”

Lucien turned.

Evryn was already sitting up, curls wild, one hand reaching instinctively toward her blade.

She looked hurt.

And not the kind he was trained to cause.

Her voice trembled with fury. “You thought I’d just be fine with that? After everything?”

Lucien exhaled, trying to stay cold. “You’d be safer here.”

“You don’t get to decide that!”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“No, you were trying to get rid of me before you had to make another choice. ”

Lucien flinched.

Evryn rose fully now, fire under her skin. “First you stalk me. Then you save me. Then you nearly kill me. Then you lie. Again. And now what? Just gonna disappear and let me wake up alone in some ruin with strangers?”

“You were never mine to keep, Evryn!”

The words hit like a slap between them.

Silence.

Cracked and raw.

Lucien stepped forward, eyes blazing. “You think this is easy for me? You think I’m built for this? I’ve spent my whole life doing what I was told—no questions, no guilt, no mercy. Then you come along. You with your eyes and your fire and your damn belief that people like me can change.”

Evryn’s chest rose and fell. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“I can’t protect you from what I am,” he said, voice hoarse.

Evryn’s eyes glistened, but her jaw was set. “I never asked you to.”

Lucien stared at her.

Something shattered behind his ribs.

And before he could stop himself, he crossed the space between them in two strides.

His hand found her waist. Hers curled into his collar.

Their mouths crashed together, heat and fury and something broken needing to bleed.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was war.

Lucien forced himself to back away. “Get some sleep,” he said roughly. “We have a lot to cover tomorrow.”

Lucien couldn’t even look at her. He didn’t trust himself to. All he knew was that he had to train her to be ready. For war, his mother, Thalia… possibly even himself.