The storm came with him.
Cassian stood in the corridor like a secret made flesh — half in shadow, half in moonlight. He wasn't supposed to be here. Not in her wing. Not this late. Not with blood at the corner of his mouth and a letter clutched between gloved fingers like it burned.
Lyra didn't flinch, but the breath caught in her throat all the same.
"Should I have knocked?" he asked quietly, voice a thread of silk fraying at the edges.
She shut the door behind her with a calm she didn't feel. "Didn't you already?"
His smile was crooked. Tired. Dangerous. "No. That was the knife in the Duke's wall."
Ah. So the letter had found its mark.
She stepped past him, the train of her silk robe trailing like smoke. She didn't look back when she said, "If you're here to make demands, you're already too late."
His boots echoed behind her — a steady rhythm, like a heart that refused to break.
"Then what would you call this?" he murmured.
She turned sharply. "A mistake."
Cassian stopped, inches from her. "Or an opportunity."
His scent hit her first — cedar, old paper, steel — the kind of smell that clung to long nights and longer regrets. His eyes, that golden-flecked amber, locked with hers. No apology. No shame.
"I know what you're doing, Lyra."
"Do you?"
"You're remaking the world," he said, and it wasn't flattery. It was fear. "Piece by piece. But the higher you rise, the deeper your enemies dig. You'll need someone who can see in the dark."
She raised a brow. "And you think that's you?"
"I know it's me."
A beat of silence passed between them, sharp as glass.
"You poisoned me," she said flatly.
"And I regret it."
"You watched me burn."
"And I haven't slept since."
She laughed — low and bitter, slicing through the hush like a blade. "You think a few sleepless nights earns you absolution?"
"No." His voice dropped, hoarse now. "But maybe it earns me a bargain."
Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of bargain?"
Cassian's gaze didn't waver. "Information. On Evelyne. On Caelum. On what the Council is planning in the east. I'll give it to you. All of it."
Suspicion coiled in her gut like smoke.
"And what do you want in return?" she asked, already knowing.
He didn't blink. "One night."
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
She should've slapped him. Should've laughed in his face. Should've turned and walked away.
But she didn't.
Instead, she tilted her head, studying him the way a viper might study a man with a bleeding hand.
"Just one?"
He nodded once. "No lies. No chains. Just truth. Between us."
Lyra stepped closer. She could see the scar beneath his jaw now — the one no one ever mentioned. She could see the pulse at his throat, steady but not calm.
She traced a finger down his chest, stopping just above the dagger tucked into his belt.
"You think truth is intimacy?" she whispered.
"I think lies have already taken too much from you," he said, voice raw now. "Let me give you something real. Just once."
Gods.
He meant it.
It wasn't lust in his eyes — not just lust. It was hunger. Regret. Desperation wrapped in velvet and stitched with sin. The kind of gaze that made a woman feel like a temple right before it's burned to the ground.
Lyra stepped back.
"No."
Cassian's throat worked. "Lyra—"
"I said no," she snapped, voice sharper now, edged with heat. "You don't get to ask for my body as penance."
He looked stricken. "That's not—"
"It is. That's exactly what it is. You want to erase what you did with one night of truth? One night of softness? It doesn't work like that."
Then, quieter: "Nothing ever has."
His silence was answer enough.
She turned — but not before reaching into her sleeve and tossing him something. A coin. Iron and cold.
"This buys you one answer," she said. "Use it wisely."
He caught it without looking. "What do I do with the rest of the truth?"
Lyra glanced over her shoulder, smile like a knife pressed to silk.
"Bleed it out," she said. "Or bury it. Just don't bring it to my door again."
She walked away.
Didn't run.
Didn't cry.
Didn't look back to see the man who once poisoned her sink slowly to the floor, as if the weight of guilt had finally grown teeth.
But she felt it.
The shift.
The fracture.
And she knew — Cassian would not stop.
Not now.
Not until he was inside her life again.
Or dead.
---
The next morning, the sunlight was a little too gold.
Lyra stood by the window of her private solar, staring down at the gardens. They were pruning the bloodrose hedges again. Thorne had said they grew better when cut hard.
Just like people, he'd added dryly.
She hadn't seen him since the night she broke open her past like a wound in the war room. He hadn't come to her chambers. Hadn't sent a note.
But she hadn't gone to him either.
There was something simmering between them now — not quite trust, but not mere strategy anymore either.
A shared fire. Quiet. Consuming.
Behind her, the door opened.
She didn't turn. "If it's you again, Cassian, I swear—"
"It's not," came Thorne's gravel-soft voice.
Lyra stiffened.
Then slowly turned.
He was dressed in black today. No crown, no armor. Just linen. His eyes burned like coals.
"I heard about the spymaster's visit," he said simply.
Her lips curved. "Did you?"
"I don't like men coming to your bed uninvited."
"He didn't make it past the hall."
Thorne nodded once, as if that mattered more than anything.
He crossed the room in three long strides, stopping just in front of her.
"You gave him something," he said.
She didn't answer.
"I felt it," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "The way you locked yourself down after. The way your magic thinned."
Lyra's throat tightened.
"Let me help you," he said. "You don't have to carry it all."
"Yes," she whispered, "I do."
His hands cupped her face.
"Not alone."
And before she could pull away — before she could remind him that their marriage was forged in politics, not promises — Thorne leaned down…
And kissed her.
Not like a soldier claiming ground.
Not like a prince demanding loyalty.
But like a man kissing a woman who had clawed her way out of hell… and still tasted of ash.
And when she didn't stop him, when her fingers gripped his shirt and pulled him closer—
She knew:
This fire wasn't safe anymore.
And it wasn't pretend.