Elara's POV
The blood on the white cloth was impossibly red against Cassian's pale fingers.
"Don't." His voice was rough when he saw me. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" I couldn't move from the doorway. Couldn't stop staring at the blood.
"Like I'm dying." He tried to smile, but another cough wracked his body. More blood. "Even though I am."
Something in my chest cracked open. I crossed the library in three strides and grabbed the cloth from his hand. "How long has this been happening?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes!" The word came out sharper than I intended. "It matters. Of course it matters."
He looked up at me, surprise flickering across his exhausted face. "Why? You're here to kill me anyway. The curse is just doing your job for you."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Had no idea how to respond to that.
Because he was right. I was here to kill him. That was my mission. My purpose. The only thing I'd trained for my entire life.
So why did seeing him hurt make me want to hurt whoever had done this to him?
"The curse," I said finally, my voice steadier than I felt. "Tell me about it."
"Why? So you can report it to your handlers as a weakness?" But there was no bite in his words. Just bone-deep weariness.
"No." I surprised myself by meaning it. "So I can understand what they did to you."
For a long moment, he just studied my face. Looking for lies, probably. For tricks. But I kept my expression open, honest. Showed him the confusion and anger and fear warring inside me.
"Sit," he said finally, gesturing to the chair beside him. "This will take a while."
I sat.
"When I was sixteen, the Council sent ambassadors for peace talks. My parents were so hopeful." His voice went distant. "They thought the war could finally end. They dressed in their finest clothes and went to meet the delegation with open hearts." He paused, pain etched in every line of his face. "The ambassadors were assassins. They killed my parents in front of me. And before they died, they placed a curse on me—one that would slowly consume my life force. Make sure the Shadow line ended with me."
"But you survived the assassination."
"Barely. Rowan got me out. We've been fighting the curse ever since, but it's winning." Another cough, but he kept the cloth away this time. "I have maybe a year left. Probably less."
A year. This man who'd saved my sister, who'd tried to rescue my village, who'd built a kingdom where children played safely—he had a year left to live.
Because of the Council. Because of people like me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be sorry." He finally looked at me directly. "Be angry. Be furious. But don't be sorry for something you didn't do."
"But I'm here to finish what they started."
"Are you?" His eyes held mine. "Because you've had plenty of chances to kill me, Elara. We both know that. Yet I'm still alive."
He was right. I'd been alone with him multiple times. Could have poisoned his food, stabbed him in the library, pushed him off the ramparts. Any competent spy would have completed the mission by now.
But I hadn't. And I didn't know why.
"Come with me," Cassian said suddenly, standing. "I want to show you something. Something real. Something that's just mine, not the king's or the Dark Lord's. Just Cassian's."
"You already showed me the garden—"
"That was where we were interrupted." A ghost of a smile. "This time, no Council assassins. I promise."
Against every instinct of my training, I followed him through the castle and up the winding stairs to the roof. But this time, we took a different path. Through a door I hadn't noticed before, down a narrow corridor, up another flight of stairs.
"I found this place when I was seventeen," Cassian said as we climbed. "Right after my parents died. When the weight of the crown was crushing me and I couldn't breathe anymore." He pushed open a final door. "This is where I learned to breathe again."
I stepped through and gasped.
The garden we'd been interrupted in before was beautiful. But this—this was magic.
A small private garden, hidden from view, filled with flowers that glowed silver and blue and soft purple in the moonlight. They weren't just reflecting light. They were creating it, each bloom pulsing gently like a heartbeat.
"Lunar roses," Cassian said softly, moving among the flowers with such tenderness it made my throat tight. "They only grow in shadow. They die if exposed to too much light. The Council calls them cursed." He touched one bloom gently. "But they're the most beautiful things I've ever seen."
He moved from plant to plant, explaining each one. Midnight lilies that bloomed once a year. Shadow vines that hummed when you touched them. Star flowers that arranged themselves in constellation patterns.
"I planted every single one myself," he admitted. "This is the only place in the entire kingdom where I'm not the Dark Lord or the cursed king or the enemy. Here, I'm just... me. A boy who likes plants."
His voice carried such longing, such sadness, that something in my chest twisted painfully.
"This is where I come to remember who I was before the crown," he continued. "Before the war. Before the curse. When I was just Cassian, and the worst thing I had to worry about was whether my mother would scold me for tracking mud through the castle."
He knelt beside a cluster of silver flowers, touching them like they were precious. "My mother loved gardens. She taught me every plant name, every growing technique. Said that if you could make something beautiful grow, you could make anything beautiful grow. Even yourself."
I watched him tend his flowers, this supposed monster the Council had sent me to kill. This man who was dying because of a curse placed by my employers. This lonely king who'd created a secret place just to remember who he'd been before the world broke him.
And my heart did something I wasn't prepared for.
It recognized him. Not as a target. Not as an enemy.
As someone like me. Someone shaped by trauma into something they never chose to be.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Cassian looked up at me, and in the silver glow of his flowers, he looked younger. More vulnerable. "Because I'm dying, Elara. And before I die, I want at least one person to know that I existed. Not the Dark Lord. Not the king. Just Cassian. The boy who loved books and gardens and hoped for peace." He stood, taking a step toward me. "I want someone to remember that I tried to be good. Even when the world demanded I be something else."
Tears burned my eyes. "I'll remember."
"Will you?" He moved closer, and my heart started racing for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. "Or will you complete your mission and report back that you killed the monster, just like they trained you to do?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I don't know anything anymore. Everything I thought was true is turning out to be lies. Everything I was taught is wrong. I don't even know who I am without the mission."
"You're Elara." He said my name like it was something precious. "Not Dr. Ashton. Not the Council's spy. Just Elara. The girl who loves languages and gets excited about old books and has the kindest eyes I've ever seen." He paused. "The girl who threw herself in front of a blade meant for her enemy. Because somewhere inside, you already knew the truth."
"What truth?"
"That I'm not your enemy." He reached out slowly, giving me time to pull away. When I didn't, he touched my face gently, wiping away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen. "That maybe we're both victims of the same lie."
His touch was warm. Careful. Nothing like what I'd expected from the Dark Lord.
"This is dangerous," I whispered.
"I know."
"They'll kill me if they find out I'm questioning the mission."
"I know."
"I should leave. Should complete my mission or run away. Anything but this."
"I know." His thumb traced my cheekbone gently. "But you're still here."
I was. Against all logic, all training, all sense—I was still here. Standing in a secret garden with a dying king, feeling things I had no right to feel.
"Cassian—"
A sound below. Voices. Many voices.
We both tensed. Cassian's hand dropped from my face as we moved to the garden's edge and looked down into the courtyard.
Council soldiers. Dozens of them, pouring through the gates like a flood.
And at their head, wearing the white mask with golden sunrays—
High Chancellor Theron himself.
"No," Cassian breathed. "He's never left the capital. Never. Why is he here?"
We watched as Theron's forces surrounded the castle. As he raised his hand and magical chains erupted from the ground, wrapping around Shadowkeep's walls.
A siege. He was laying siege to the castle.
"He knows," I whispered, horror flooding through me. "He knows I haven't completed the mission. He's here to finish it himself."
"No." Cassian grabbed my arm. "He's here because Mira told him you're compromised. That you're protecting me instead of killing me." His grip tightened. "Elara, you need to run. Now. Get to the escape tunnels before—"
"ELARA THORNE!" Theron's voice, magically amplified, boomed across the courtyard. "I know you're in there. I know you've betrayed the Council. Come down and face judgment, or I'll burn this castle to the ground with everyone inside."
My blood turned to ice.
"He'll do it," I whispered. "He'll actually do it."
"I know." Cassian's face had gone hard, cold—the face of a king preparing for war. "Which is why you need to leave. I'll hold them off—"
"You can't fight them all! The curse has weakened you—"
"I don't have a choice!" He grabbed my shoulders. "Elara, listen to me. There are children in this castle. Families. People who trust me to keep them safe. I won't let them die because the Council wants me dead."
"Then let me help."
"Help?" He looked at me like I'd gone mad. "You're the one he wants. If you go down there—"
"If I go down there, maybe I can buy you time. Time to evacuate. Time to prepare." My mind was already spinning plans. "I'll surrender. Tell him I completed the mission but you survived. Whatever story he needs to hear."
"He'll kill you."
"Maybe." I was surprised by how calm I felt. "But at least all those people downstairs will live."
Cassian stared at me. "You're serious. You'd actually sacrifice yourself for people you don't even know?"
"You did." I met his eyes. "When you were sixteen and tried to save my village. You risked everything for strangers. How is this different?"
"Because I'm already dying," he said roughly. "You have your whole life ahead of you."
"What life?" The words burst out bitter and raw. "A life serving people who lied to me? Who made me forget my own sister? Who turned me into a weapon?" I shook my head. "If I'm going to die, let it be for something real. Something true. Let it be for protecting people who actually deserve it."
His expression cracked. Showed me the fear and admiration and something else beneath. Something that made my heart race.
"I wish we'd had more time," he whispered.
"Me too."
We stood there in his secret garden, flowers glowing around us, an army waiting below. And for just a moment, I let myself imagine what could have been. If we'd met differently. If the Council hadn't lied. If he wasn't cursed and I wasn't a spy.
If we could have just been Cassian and Elara.
"ELARA THORNE!" Theron's voice boomed again. "You have five minutes. Then I start killing hostages."
Hostages. He'd already taken hostages.
"I have to go," I said.
"Wait." Cassian grabbed my hand. "There's something you need to know. Something I should have told you immediately."
"What?"
He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. "This came for you this morning. From your handlers. I wasn't going to show you, but—" He handed it to me. "You deserve to know what you're walking into."
My hands shook as I unfolded the paper. Mira's handwriting. But the message was short. Brutal.
Mission terminated. Asset compromised beyond recovery. Elimination authorized. Kill on sight.
They weren't going to let me explain. Weren't going to give me a chance to come back.
They were going to kill me the moment they saw me.
"Now do you understand?" Cassian asked quietly. "There's no surrender. No buying time. The moment you go down there, you're dead."
"Then we fight," I said, surprised by the steel in my own voice.
"We?"
I looked at him—really looked at him. This man who'd saved my sister, tried to save my village, built a kingdom where people could be safe. This dying king who tended flowers in secret and believed in peace even when the world demanded war.
This person I'd been sent to kill but couldn't imagine a world without.
"We," I repeated firmly. "Because you were right. We're not enemies. We never were. And I'm done letting the Council tell me who to fight."
Something blazed in Cassian's eyes. Hope, maybe. Or recognition. Or something more dangerous than both.
"Then we fight," he agreed. "Together."
A massive explosion rocked the castle. Theron's forces had started their attack.
We ran for the stairs, but before we reached them, the door burst open.
Rowan stood there, blood streaming down his face, sword in hand. "Your Majesty, we're under full assault. They've breached the east wing and—" He spotted me and his expression hardened. "She needs to leave. Now. Before—"
"She stays," Cassian said firmly. "She fights with us."
"Your Majesty, she's the reason they're here—"
"She's the reason I'm still alive," Cassian interrupted. "And she's choosing to stand with us. That makes her one of us."
Rowan looked between us, seeing something in Cassian's face that made his own expression soften slightly. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Fine. But if she betrays us, I'm killing her myself." Rowan tossed me a sword. "Can you fight, spy?"
I caught it easily. "I was trained by the best."
"Then prove it." He gestured toward the stairs. "The medical wing is under attack. Your sister is down there protecting the patients. Thought you might want to help."
Lyris. My sister who I'd just found. Who was in danger because of me.
I ran.
Behind me, I heard Cassian and Rowan following. Heard the sounds of battle growing louder. Heard Theron's voice still calling for my surrender.
But I wasn't surrendering. Not to him. Not to the Council. Not to the lies they'd built my life on.
For the first time in eighteen years, I was choosing my own path.
Even if it killed me.
We burst into the medical wing to find chaos. Council soldiers attacking. Shadow guards defending. Healers trying to protect patients. And in the center—
Lyris, fighting three soldiers at once with nothing but a scalpel and fury.
I threw myself into the fight, my sword singing as it met enemy blades. My training took over—strike, parry, dodge, kill. But this time, I wasn't fighting for the Council's lies.
I was fighting for the truth.
For my sister. For Cassian. For all the people the Council had hurt with their propaganda and war.
I was fighting for myself.
A soldier lunged at me. I sidestepped, brought my sword up, and—
Froze.
Because the soldier's mask had fallen off.
And beneath it was a face I knew.
Mira.
My best friend. My handler. The girl who'd held me through nightmares and celebrated my successes.
She was here. Fighting for the Council. Following orders to kill me.
"Hello, El," she said, raising her blade. "I'm sorry it has to end this way."
And she attacked.