Liora's heart thundered in her chest, caught between the weight of the scroll in Rowan's hand and the silent plea in Lucien's eyes. She could feel Lucien's tension radiating off him like heat; he didn't trust Rowan, not even slightly. But something in Rowan's gaze unsettled her in a different way. He wasn't bluffing. He knew things, things she had begged the stars to reveal for years.
Her father's death. The fire. The betrayal. Names.
"Let me go with him," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Lucien's head snapped toward her. "No."
"He has the answers I need," she said, trying to hold his gaze, though her fingers trembled.
"I don't care," Lucien said sharply, his voice like steel grinding on stone. "You don't go anywhere with men like him. Especially not alone."
"I'm not a child," she shot back, though her voice cracked.
"You're not disposable either," he growled.
The two stared at each other, the air thick with unspoken history and pain.
