CHAPTER 196: WE CAN’T LINGER HERE

The pavilion was a ruin. Silk banners shredded into ribbons. The once-pristine lotus lamps lay overturned, their oil bleeding into the wooden floorboards. And across it all, bodies. Some groaned in pain, some stilled forever, their black-clad uniforms soaking the boards in dark stains.

The Moon Pavilion, once a place of whispers and hidden meetings, now smelled of iron and smoke.

Liora stood amid it all, her chest heaving, hair plastered to her temples. The dagger still trembled faintly in her hand. She had fought, not with skill equal to Lucien or Rowan, but with the desperate ferocity of someone with nothing left to lose. Her knuckles were raw. A thin cut traced her arm where a blade had skimmed her.

Lucien lowered his sword slowly, his breath controlled, though his clothes bore fresh tears and blood that wasn’t all the enemy’s. His gaze swept the pavilion, sharp and assessing, cataloging every threat, even now, when the last assassin had fallen silent.

And Rowan, Rowan stood leaning against a shattered pillar, his hand pressing hard against his side where crimson leaked between his fingers. He smiled faintly, as though the pain were only another jest.

"You’re both alive," he said hoarsely, as if that alone was a victory.

Lucien’s jaw flexed. He wiped his blade clean on the cloak of a fallen enemy before sheathing it. His eyes lingered on Rowan, measuring, distrusting but there was no denying the man had fought at his side.

"Alive, yes," Lucien said at last. His voice was low, edged with the exhaustion he never allowed himself to show. "But for how long? This attack was no chance encounter. They knew we’d gather here."

Liora’s grip on her dagger faltered. Her gaze darted between them. "You mean... someone inside the palace sent them?"

Rowan gave a dry laugh that turned into a wince. "Not just someone inside, little dove. This... this was orchestrated. Too many came for a simple silencing." He pushed off the pillar with a groan, staggering toward them. His eyes, still sharp despite his pallor, fixed on Lucien. "Seems the snake coils deeper than either of us guessed."

Lucien met his gaze, silent, unyielding. But for the first time, there was no denial in his eyes.

Instead, he turned to Liora. His tone softened, only slightly, but enough for her to feel it. "You fought well. But this place is compromised. You can’t stay here."

Her heart clenched. "Then where...?"

"You’ll come with me," Lucien said, his words cutting clean through Rowan’s attempted protest. "The pavilion isn’t safe, nor is your uncle’s house. They will come again, and harder."

Rowan swore under his breath. "You’d take her to Blackthorne Manor? You’d paint a target on her back brighter than before."

Lucien’s gaze flicked to him, cold and final. "Better a target under my shield than a lamb left for slaughter."

The silence that followed was thick, broken only by the crackle of oil catching flame somewhere in the pavilion’s wreckage.

Liora stood between them, trembling from the night’s violence, yet aware: the choice was no longer hers alone.

And with it, a truth settled into her chest like a weight; whatever fragile distance she and Lucien had kept, it was breaking. For danger had bound them together, and there was no turning back.

The clash did not abate with the first wave’s retreat. If anything, the night seemed to lean in closer, as though the Moon Pavilion itself were listening. The air reeked of blood and scorched lacquer where blades had struck lantern-wood. Shadows leapt like startled ghosts along the painted walls.

Liora’s chest heaved as she steadied her dagger, its tip slick. Her arms trembled from exertion, but she refused to lower her guard. Rowan had taken the brunt of the last assault, his shoulders streaked with shallow cuts. Lucien, however, stood untouched, every strike against him had been anticipated, parried, and broken as though he’d already known how each man would move.

"More will come," Rowan rasped, spitting blood onto the stone floor. He turned to Lucien, eyes burning with accusation. "You were meant to stay away from this place. Your very presence has drawn their fangs sharper."

Lucien’s gaze flicked over the carnage, then back to Rowan, unblinking. "And yet without me, you’d already be on your knees."

"Stop it!" Liora snapped, her voice breaking through the tension like a whip. Her hands shook, not from fear, but fury. "If either of you wastes breath fighting each other, you’ll hand them victory yourselves."

For a moment, silence. Only the soft crackle of a dying lantern and the faint hiss of wind through the pavilion’s torn screens. Then, a low horn echoed from the distance—deep, guttural, a sound that raised the fine hairs at the nape of Liora’s neck.

Rowan swore under his breath. "They’re signaling the second unit."

"How many?" Lucien asked, his voice iron.

"Too many to fell in one night without reinforcements."

The horn sounded again, closer this time. Liora’s heart raced, but she forced her thoughts to clarity. "Then we retreat."

Rowan rounded on her, disbelief sharpening his tone. "Do you have any idea what’s at stake? The Moon Pavilion holds records, names, codes, and routes. If they burn this place, half the kingdom’s veins will bleed secrets into the enemy’s hands."

Lucien’s expression shifted at that, cold fury flashing like a blade unsheathed. He glanced at Liora, then at Rowan, weighing them both as if deciding how much to trust. "If that’s true, then they must not take the pavilion. No matter the cost."

"Agreed," Rowan said, though he looked as if the words tasted bitter.

Liora swallowed hard, the weight of their shared resolve pressing down on her chest. She had wanted answers tonight, clarity about Rowan and about Lucien. Instead, she had found herself thrown into the eye of a storm too vast for her to glimpse its edges.

Another horn. Closer.

Lucien straightened, his hand tightening on the hilt of his blade. His profile was etched in lantern light and shadow, every line carved with grim purpose. "Then we stand together."

For the first time, Rowan did not contradict him.

And for the first time, Liora understood: whatever enmity chained these men, tonight it would have to be set aside because the tide rising outside the pavilion was about to crash upon them all.

the three who remained standing. Lucien stood with his blade lowered but not sheathed, his eyes locked on the last place where their attackers had melted into the forest shadows. Rowan’s dagger still glistened with blood, his knuckles white where they clutched the hilt. Liora pressed a hand against her chest, willing her heartbeat to slow, though her other hand refused to unclench from the small knife she’d snatched in desperation.

The danger had passed temporarily. Yet none of them moved.

"They weren’t bandits," Lucien said finally, his voice low and edged with certainty. His gaze flicked to the ground, to the precision of the footprints, the disciplined silence in their retreat. "Too coordinated. Too disciplined."

Rowan nodded grimly. "Assassins, most likely. Sent by someone who knew where you’d be."

The weight of his words settled over them. Liora’s pulse quickened again, though this time not from fear of blades, but from the deeper fear that the attack was not random. That it was meant.

"By whom?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lucien turned sharply, his eyes meeting hers. For a heartbeat, he seemed about to answer honestly, to share the truth he had carried in silence. But then his jaw tightened. "That’s the question," he said instead.

Rowan, however, didn’t share his hesitation. He stepped forward, wiping his blade clean on the grass before sheathing it. "Liora, you should know something. What happened tonight isn’t a coincidence. Lucien has enemies, powerful ones. But they’re not just his enemies. By being with him, by being tied to him, you’ve become their target too."

Her breath caught. The words sank into her, cold and sharp.

Lucien’s glare hardened. "Rowan..."

"She deserves to know," Rowan snapped, his composure cracking for the first time. "You hide everything as if shielding her will save her, but you’ve only dragged her deeper without preparing her."

The tension between them flared like drawn steel, the air thick with unspoken history. Liora looked between them, her hands trembling, torn between fear and the desperate need to understand.

"What aren’t you telling me?" she asked, her voice shaking now, though she forced it louder. "Who sent them? And why does Rowan act like he knows more than I do?"

The silence that followed was suffocating. Rowan’s jaw flexed as though he might finally tear the truth free, but Lucien’s gaze cut into him, sharp and commanding. It was a look not just of warning but of shared understanding, of secrets too dangerous to spill.

For the first time, Liora saw something else in Rowan’s eyes. Not just loyalty. Not just concern. But something almost like guilt.

A gust of wind stirred the leaves around them, carrying with it the faintest trace of steel, no, not steel. A shadow of presence. Liora stiffened. She wasn’t sure if it was her fear imagining it, but she could have sworn they weren’t alone.

"Move," Lucien said suddenly, breaking the standstill. He sheathed his blade with a snap, his tone leaving no room for hesitation. "We can’t linger here. If those assassins were sent ahead, more will follow. We need ground they can’t control."

Rowan glanced back at the forest, then at Liora. His hand twitched, as if he wanted to steady her, but he pulled it back, his voice rough instead. "Stay close. Whatever happens, don’t stray from us."

Liora’s fingers curled tighter around her knife, though she knew it was laughably small compared to the blades they wielded. Still, her resolve sharpened. If she was a target now, if her life was tangled in their shadows, then she needed more than half-truths and cryptic warnings. She needed answers.

As they slipped into the darkness of the night, leaving the battlefield behind, one thought clung to her mind like a thorn she could not dislodge:

If Lucien and Rowan shared secrets, then what was it they feared she would learn?

And more chilling still...

Was the greatest danger the assassins in the forest or the truths her companions kept locked behind their silence?