Chapter 81
Chapter 81
The plate hits the floor.
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It’s not a dramatic shatter nor was it cinematic. It’s simply ceramic cracking loud enough to echo down the corridor like a gunshot in a quiet church.
Camilla’s head snaps toward the door first.
Alaric’s a half–second behind her.
That half–second ruins me.
My body reacts before my brain does and I flatten myself against the wall beside the doorway, heart slamming so hard it rattles my ribs. The office smells like ink, leather, and her–sweet and sharp and wrong. I don’t look again. I already saw enough. Her hand on his chest. His mouth not pulling away at that swift second.
Someone inside the office says, “Who’s there? ”
It’s Alaric’s voice.
I don’t answer. I don’t breathe. I don’t think.
I turn and fucking run.
My boots slip on the polished stone as I take the stairs two at a time, fingers skimming the banister just to keep upright. My eyes burn, vision blurring, and I swipe at my face hard enough to sting because crying right now feels like losing oxygen. I hear my name behind me—maybe–but I don’t stop to confirm. I don’t want to know if he follows. I don’t want to know if he doesn’t.
Rosaline’s still stationed at the stairwell like some cursed checkpoint from hell. She takes one look at my face and her expression changes.
“My lady–are you p>
I barrel past her, shoulder clipping the banister, pain flaring and vanishing under adrenaline. I don’t slow. I don’t apologize. I don’t do the polite, broken act tonight. I keep moving–down the stairs, through the doors, across the courtyard–until the packhouse disappears behind me like it never existed.
Cold air slaps my lungs. Gravel bites through my soles. I barely register the world until I slam straight into a solid wall of muscle.
Hands grip my shoulders automatically, steadying me.
“Sorin p>
It’s the envoy. It’s Beta Cassian.
That’s all it takes, for another person to get a hold of me.
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Chapter 81
And I fold.
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My forehead hits his chest and a sound tears out of me that I don’t recognize. It’s ugly. Loudt It’s not dignified at all as I’m taught in the etiquette class. My hands fist in his shirt like I’m drowning. My knees threaten to give and he adjusts without a word, grounding me like he’s done this before. As though he knows.
He doesn’t ask what happened.
He doesn’t ask who.
He just wraps his arms around me and holds me while I come apart like a fucking fault line.
I cry until my throat burns. Until my chest aches. Until my wolf curls in on herself, whimpering instead of snarling. Cassian doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t shift. He just stands there in the middle of the training grounds like a quiet anchor while the world tilts and resets around me.
When it finally cases, it’s not because I feel better. It’s because my body runs out of fuel.
I suppose I should have known better.
Time flies by fast.
The Luna battle is tomorrow.
A full week has passed since that night, and somehow the world didn’t end. Which feels rude, honestly.
I’ve trained every day since. Hard. Harder than I should. My body’s bruised in places I didn’t know could bruise. My knuckles ache constantly. I’m better–technically. Faster. Sharper. But not enough. Not enough to beat Camilla in raw combat who‘ been fighting her entire life, and we all fucking know it.
Backing out would be smarter.
Backing out would also feel like letting her win.
So here I am.
Alone on the training platform, sprawled flat on my back, arms spread wide as though I’ve been crucified by poor life choices. The ceiling lights glare down at me, fluorescent and unforgiving. Sweat cools against my skin and the rubber mat smells like chalk and failure to attain anything in it in a week.
My really good trainer, Beta Cole left ten minutes ago to deal with paperwork or politics or whatever hell Beta duties require. The space feels too big without anyone else in it.
My chest feels tight.
Because my brain won’t shut the fuck up.
The image replays without my permission–Alaric’s office, Camilla too close, my stupid plate slipping from my hands. I tell myself the same lies on repeat. Maybe it wasn’t mutual. Maybe he froze. Maybe she kissed
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Chapter 81
him and he was about to push her away.
Maybe.
But maybe he didn’t even notice me standing there.
That one sticks.
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What if he’s already tired of me? What if I’m just a complication? A problem he has to solve before moving on to the woman who actually belongs here?
My jaw tightens. Everyone loves Camilla.
What happens if I lose to her tomorrow?
Does he stop fighting for me then?
Was I only brave because I thought he’d catch me no matter what?
That realization hits harder than any punch I’ve taken this week.
My confidence wasn’t mine. It was borrowed.
I sit up too fast and the room tilts violently. A sharp ache blooms behind my eyes and I hiss as I grab the edge of the platform, fingers scraping chalk dust that smears white across my skin. My stomach flips.
“Fuck,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut.
I overdid it. That’s all. I pushed too hard today and didn’t eat enough. Didn’t sleep enough. Classic Sorin self- sabotage cocktail.
I open my eyes-
-and the room isn’t right.
The lights soften. The harsh glare fades into something warm. Golden. The rubber mat beneath me feels different. Cleaner. Newer. My breath stutters as the smell changes—no sweat, no metal. Just sunlight and wood and something faintly sweet.
My heart kicks hard.
The balcony rail is still there, but it’s not cold metal anymore. It’s smooth wood, worn by hands and time. The space looks… wrong. Younger. There are toys scattered near the wall. A small training dummy. A stupid carved wolf missing one ear.
It’s the same room but everything is different.
My pulse roars in my ears.
No.
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Chapter 81
I push to my feet, unsteady, chalk dust falling from my palms like ash.
This isn’t real.
But it feels real.
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I stagger back instinctively, palms up, because my brain is screaming nope even while my body keeps walking forward like an idiot in a horror movie.
The floor is warm.
That’s the first thing that really fucks with me.
Not rubber. Not chalk–dust grit sticking to sweat. Actual wood. Smooth. Polished. Sun–warmed. The kind you
sit on without your skin protesting.
can
I look down at my feet.
Bare.
Of course I am.
“Great,” I mutter. “We’re hallucinating barefoot now p>
My voice sounds… smaller. Not higher. Just softer. It’s as if it hasn’t learned how to be sharp yet.
The air smells clean. Pine and soap and something sweet, like honey left open in the sun. There’s laughter drifting in from somewhere outside the balcony doors–kids, plural, running wild and loud and alive.
My chest tightens.
Toys are scattered near the far wall. A little wooden sword. A carved wolf with one ear snapped clean off. A training dummy barely taller than my waist, patched and loved to death.
I know this room.
I don’t want to know this room.
My feet keep moving anyway.
The balcony doors are open, curtains breathing in and out with the breeze. Light pours in, thick and gold, painting everything soft. Too soft. Like the world before it learned how to hurt.
There’s a girl standing just inside the doorway.
She’s small. Thirteen, maybe. All elbows and knees and messy dark hair pulled into a crooked braid that keeps slipping loose. She’s half–hidden behind the frame, peeking in like she knows she shouldn’t be listening but can’t stop herself.
My stomach drops.
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Chapter 81
She looks like me.
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Not exactly. Younger. Rounder edges. With no scars. No shadows under her eyes. Still hopeful enough to be stupid.
I step closer, slow, careful. She doesn’t see me. Of course she doesn’t.
Inside the room, voices snap back and forth–sharp, heated.
A boy’s voice, already rough with anger. “Then send them to war p>
An older man answers, colder, controlled in that way people get when they’re trying not to lose their shit. “You know damn well that’s not what this is about p>
“I don’t care!” the boy snaps. “Send our men to that war p>
“They made a mistake,” the man fires back. “And the man you’re talking about is the father of the girl you claim to care about p>
There’s a pause.
The girl by the door inhales sharply as though she’s shocked of what she’s hearing. What–what did he mean?
It’s quiet, but it carries. A tiny sound, barely there–and somehow it lands like a gunshot.
Both heads turn toward the balcony.
I don’t see their faces clearly at first. Just the shape of them. The boy is tall for his age, already broad- shouldered, tension vibrating off him like a live wire. Dark hair falling into eyes that are already too old.
The man beside him looks like him. Hard lines. Same jaw. Same weight in his presence.
The boy’s eyes
“Sorin p>
widen.
The name slams into me. Sorin?
Me?
The girl jolts back, panic flashing across her face. She trips over her own feet, heels skidding on the smooth floor.
And I-
I step back too.
Because suddenly I can feel the edge.
Wood gives way to air behind me. My heel hits the railing, wrong angle, no balance. I glance down-
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Chapter 81
The ground is far. Way too fucking far. I’m gonna fall.
My stomach lurches violently.
This isn’t a dream.
Dreams don’t let you feel gravity like this.
My arms flail uselessly. The world tilts. The girl screams-
And then-
Pain.
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A hand clamps around my arm, brutal and sure, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. I gasp as my body jerks forward, momentum snapping me back from the edge.
“Sorin p>
The voice is deeper now.
Older.
The warmth of the place vanishes.
The sunlight dies.
The toys blink out like they were never there.
The memory fades.
The wood under my feet turns to concrete mid–step, the smell slamming back to sweat and metal and chalk so hard it makes my head spin. Fluorescent lights burn into my vision. The balcony railing is cold steel again, biting into my hip.
I choke on air, lungs spasming as if I’ve been underwater.
Strong arms yank me fully back, feet skidding, until I collide with a solid chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” Alaric roars.
His grip is iron. One arm locked around my torso, the other still clamped on my wrist like he’s afraid I’ll evaporate if he lets go. His face is furious–eyes blazing, jaw tight–but there’s something under it that makes my throat close.
Fear.
Raw. Unfiltered fear.
Just a man who almost watched someone fall.
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Chapter 81
I stare at him.
Really stare.
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My heart is hammering so hard it hurts. My fingers are numb. The echo of that name is still bouncing around my skull, over and over.
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out at first.
But I now know one thing.
You and I… we’ve met before.
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