Page 75 of Claimed By Flame

“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 itwatched.

“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.

Sheknew.

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.”

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