The rain hadn't stopped in three days.
It fell in a relentless whisper over the moss-covered rooftops of Durn Hollow, turning narrow alleyways into shallow rivers and cloaking every step in a veil of mist. Once a thriving border town, Durn Hollow had become a graveyard of broken dreams, inhabited now by smugglers, outcasts, and those with too many sins to confess.
It was also where the rebellion had begun to breathe.
Aerin leaned against the warped window of the hideout's upper room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching the blurred outlines of people below. Refugees. Fighters. Wraiths of a kingdom teetering on the edge.
She hadn't slept. Not truly. Not since Cassius had fallen.
The bond between them wasn't supposed to be so strong—not this quickly, not this painfully. But every time she closed her eyes, she felt it again: the chains, the burning, his voice.
"You will kneel while they burn."
She hadn't told Thorne. Not yet. The rebellion needed her calm, not her grief.
Behind her, Lys stirred. The redhead had taken to sleeping on the floor like a soldier, blade tucked beneath her pillow, senses wired for ambush. She rubbed at her eyes, yawned, and then blinked at Aerin.
"You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"Staring into the rain like it holds all the answers."
Aerin didn't look away. "Maybe it does."
Lys stood, stretched, and padded over. "Or maybe you just need food and a few hours' sleep. You've been running on fumes and fury for a week. Cassius wouldn't want you burning out."
That name. Spoken aloud. It hurt.
Aerin swallowed hard. "Cassius isn't here."
"No." Lys's voice softened. "But you are. And if you want to save him, you need to stay alive long enough to do it."
Aerin turned finally. Her face was pale but resolute.
"I've made up my mind. We're going back."
Lys blinked. "Back where?"
"To the capital. To Veylin's Court."
Lys made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "Gods, Aerin, do you have any idea what you're saying? That's suicide."
Aerin's eyes darkened. "Then I'll die trying. But I won't leave him there to rot."
Deep beneath the capital, where the sun had never touched, Cassius lay shackled in a prison carved from obsidian and old blood.
The Cellar of Oaths.
It was said to have been built during the first vampiric purge—a place where blood-sworn traitors were held, not to be punished, but to be forgotten. No screams echoed from here. No light. No time.
Only silence and pain.
He couldn't move. Not really. The chains binding his wrists and ankles were laced with silver and venom, burning constantly against his skin. His strength had been leeched by magic—runes carved into the walls pulsed with anti-vampiric wards, draining his power until even his breath came as a whisper.
And yet, he held on.
He had to.
Somewhere, out there, Aerin was alive. He could feel it, in the pull between them, in the moments when the pain dimmed just long enough for memory to break through. Her laugh. The fury in her voice. The way her eyes burned brighter than any crown.
He clung to those memories like lifelines.
Footsteps echoed through the hall.
Slow. Measured.
The door creaked open. A figure entered, silhouetted by the faint green glow of the rune-lined corridor.
Cassius lifted his head, jaw clenched. "Come to gloat, Veylin?"
The figure stepped into the light.
It wasn't Veylin.
It was him.
Valen.
The Blood Chancellor.
Cassius had hoped the bastard was dead.
Valen crouched before him, his robes pristine, his face a portrait of eerie serenity.
"You look terrible," he said cheerfully.
Cassius chuckled, though it came out more as a rasp. "You always were the charming one."
Valen tilted his head. "You know, there's talk in the palace. That you fell because of a mortal. That you threw away centuries of loyalty for love."
He reached out and tapped Cassius's chest, just above the heart. "Do you even remember what that feels like?"
Cassius didn't answer.
Valen's smile thinned. "You always thought you were better than the rest of us. Cleaner. Purer. But you're just another monster playing human."
He stood.
"But don't worry. You'll have plenty of time to reflect on that. Years. Decades. Maybe centuries."
He turned to leave.
Cassius managed one last whisper. "She's coming."
Valen paused.
"What?"
A flicker of something almost like fear passed through him. But only for a moment.
Then he laughed. "Let her. We'll be ready."
Back in Durn Hollow, the rebel council had gathered.
Aerin stood at the center of the room, windblown, eyes hollow, and spine made of steel. Thorne sat across from her, fingers steepled.
"You want to walk into the most fortified palace in the kingdom," he said flatly, "and rescue a vampire war criminal from a prison no one's escaped in five hundred years."
Aerin didn't blink. "Yes."
Lys leaned back in her chair, arms folded. "I told you she was serious."
Thorne sighed. "And you want us to just… support this?"
Aerin stepped forward. "Cassius risked everything to save me. He knew what would happen, and he did it anyway. He gave us time. He gave us a chance. And I won't waste that."
Silence fell over the table.
Then an old woman at the end—Nora the Raven, once a spy mistress to a fallen duke—chuckled darkly.
"I like her," she said. "Mad as a fox with a grudge."
Another voice spoke: "There's a way in."
All heads turned.
It was the boy—Silas, barely sixteen, eyes too old for his face. "The old bloodlines still have access tunnels. My grandmother served in the east wing. There's a path through the catacombs, beneath the Chapel of Thorns."
Aerin's heart jolted.
"Can you show me?"
He nodded.
Thorne rubbed a hand over his face. "If we do this, it'll change everything. This isn't a rescue—it's a declaration of war."
Aerin met his gaze. "Then let them call it war."
Far below the palace, Cassius lay in the dark, and for the first time in days—
He smiled.
Because the ember hadn't gone out.
And he knew, with the certainty of blood and fate, that Aerin would come for him.
And when she did, the empire would burn.