The worst part of 4:30 a.m. isn’t the dark, or the cold marble floor against bare feet, or even the wards that hum smugly overhead like they’re in on the joke. No. The worst part is that it’s routine now. A week of this, and my body wakes up before Tharion even bellows.

Cassie’s arm is heavy across my ribs, her hair tickling my nose. Her breath puffs warm against my collarbone, slow and steady, like she’s still pretending sleep is a form of rebellion. I twitch my fingers against her wrist, three taps—just enough to keep me steady—before I slide out from under her. She groans, lashes fluttering, and drags me back down by my shirt.

“Five more minutes.” Her voice is all sleep, low and scratchy, unfairly gorgeous.

“We don’t get five more minutes,” I mutter into her hair, but I let her hold me there anyway. Her scent—citrus biting against vanilla—blends sharp with the toasted-sugar heat that’s been clinging to me since I woke. A chemical reaction. Dangerous. Addicting.

When I finally pry free, she flops onto her back, covers half her face with one perfect hand. “Your uncle is a sadist.”

“He calls it training,” I say, digging out the leggings Seara’s staff insists are ‘court-approved athletic wear.’ “I call it ritualized torture.”

Cassie cracks one blue eye at me, crystalline even in the pre-dawn dim. “Romantic.”

“His idea of romance is lunges until you vomit.”

She snorts, sits up, and immediately fumbles with the sports bra she swore she set out last night. For all her control-freak polish, mornings strip her down to something almost… human. She curses under her breath as she tries to wrestle with the elastic, and I can’t help grinning.

“Don’t,” she warns, stabbing a finger at me.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

I spin the cuff of my sleeve once, twice, until the fabric squeaks under my nails. A stim before my fire decides it wants out. A spark shivers faintly at my knuckle before I choke it down. “Thinking what?”

“That I’m clumsy.”

“You are clumsy,” I say cheerfully.

She narrows her eyes, pulls her hair into a ponytail so sharp it could kill a man. “And yet I still manage to keep up with you.”

“Barely,” I tease.

“Barely still counts,” she fires back, captain-dry, and somehow that makes my chest warmer than any approval Tharion could give.

By the time we pad down the echoing halls toward the training yard, her fingers hook mine for exactly three beats before letting go, both of us pretending the wards don’t record it. My fire hums restless beneath my skin, itching for an excuse to burn, while she squares her shoulders like a captain heading to war.

Routine. Too familiar now. The kind of familiarity that eats at your bones until the day it breaks—and you don’t see the knife coming until it’s already between your ribs.

The air in the training yard bites colder than it should for Summer Court marble. The stones hold the night, slick with dew, until the first heat of dawn. My breath fogs even before I’ve moved, and it makes me itch to ignite—just a spark, just enough to remind myself I’m not made for this mortal chill. But Tharion’s bronze-hazel stare is already on me, a weight across my shoulders heavier than any dumbbell.

“Stances,” he says. No flourish, no good morning. Just judgment disguised as routine.

We fall into lines—Cassie and me, the empty yard stretching wide enough to make us look small. My legs ache from yesterday’s drills, but I set my feet shoulder-width, knees bent, arms raised in the defensive guard Tharion insists should feel like breathing.

It doesn’t. It feels like suffocating.

He stalks around us, scarred arms folded, eyes sharp as blades. “Hold. Again.”

We shift. Ankles burning, thighs screaming. He adjusts Cassie’s elbow with two clipped fingers. She flinches, jaw set, but doesn’t break stance. My chest warms, pride flaring in time with the fire itching to break skin. She’s clumsy, sure—but stubborn enough to make him notice.

Push-ups follow—endless, punishing. I slam palms against the stone for rhythm: one-two-three, one-two-three. My stim disguised as tempo. Cassie grunts beside me, sweat dripping off her nose, ponytail coming undone. She mutters something vicious under her breath about murder.

“Save it for after drills,” I pant, smirking sideways.

“If I survive drills.” She collapses on the last set, pushes back up anyway. Pure spite in motion.

Tharion’s boots scrape past. “Better.” That single word earns Cassie’s breathless grin, a little flash of victory sharper than any crown.

Then stretches—legs flat against the stones, arms reaching until tendons scream. The yard reeks of leather, sweat, and faint ozone. My fire sparks restless under my skin, reacting to the monotony. I roll my cuff once, twice, until fabric squeaks under nail. Anything to keep it leashed.

“Defenses,” Tharion barks.

We shift into paired drills—Cassie mirroring me, both of us blocking invisible blows. She’s clumsy, telegraphing every shift, but she plants her feet like her life depends on it. Maybe it does.

“Again.”

Her fists snap slower than mine, her stance too narrow, but when her arm meets mine in the sequence she doesn’t flinch at the contact. Her icy-blue glare locks with mine. I grin back.

“Stop smiling like you’re enjoying this,” she hisses.

“Why? It’s cute when you suffer.”

Her elbow nearly clips my ribs. Not an accident.

Tharion clears his throat, thunderclap-loud. “Discipline. Not flirting.”

Heat climbs my neck; Cassie chokes on a laugh that dies into a cough. We reset—stances wider, sharper. The monotony drags on: sweat slicking skin, the sky paling overhead, muscles trembling with every held block. Routine, drilled into marrow until endless.

And for the first time, I almost believe it will be.

The cadence of stances, blocks, counter-steps grinds to a halt when Tharion raises a scarred hand. Silence after rhythm feels unnatural, like the whole yard stripped bare.

“Enough defense.” Flat steel, no room for argument.

Cassie drags a breath, shoulders squared despite the tremor in her arms. My fire thrums harder, eager—finally, something besides holding still.

Tharion’s gaze cuts between us. “You’ve learned to stand your ground. But ground only buys time. If you want to win—if you want to live—you strike back.”

The words settle like heat in my stomach. Offensive. Finally.

He steps closer, command rolling off him like smoke. “But hear this: shielding is survival. If you can’t protect yourself while you attack, you won’t last a breath. Forget that, and you’re already dead.”

My pulse stutters. Cassie’s jaw locks so tight I hear the click. We don’t know what he means—not yet—but the certainty chills my spine.

Something is about to change.

The scrape of the yard doors splits the air, too heavy, too final to be routine.

I stiffen before I even see him.

The man who enters isn’t a courtly guard sent to posture for Seara’s daughters. No parade polish, no empty bow. He carries himself like someone carved from campaigns, not ballrooms—broad but not bulky, scars mapping his arms where steel left its signature. His crimson uniform gleams in dawnlight, but the way he moves makes it armor, not ornament.

And then his eyes—molten amber, steady as banked coals—catch on me.

Not impressed. Not curious. Just measuring.

I hate that look. I’ve lived under it forever. Seara. Courtiers. Even Selene sometimes. Weighing me against scales I can’t see. Still half-forged. Still half-human. Still less.

Heat stirs restless under my skin. My fire wants out, wants to show him I’m not something to measure—I’m something to burn.

His scent hits next, subtle but inescapable: smoldering iron, cedar singed at the edges. Not perfume. Not glamour. Just residue from too many battlefields.

He bows to Tharion, sharp, soldier-clean.

My uncle doesn’t bow back. Doesn’t blink. Just says: “Your opponent.”

The word lands like a hammer. Opponent. Not drills. Not more stances until my legs turn to jelly. An actual fight.

My pulse leaps. Thrill knots with dread, tangling hard in my chest. If I win, maybe Tharion finally stops looking at me like I’m ornamental. If I lose—I’ll never scrub it out of his voice.

Beside me, Cassie shifts. Half a step. Just enough to angle herself between me and him, as if her stubborn blue eyes could block molten amber. No shield, no magic—just the audacity of her spine. Her citrus-frost scent sharpens, bright enough to cut through sweat and stone.

I should tell her to move. To stay out of it.

Instead, I grin—sharp, reckless. Because she’s right to bristle.

He isn’t just an opponent. He’s a wall in my way. And I’ve been waiting all week for something to set fire to.

Cassie doesn’t blink, just keeps that frozen glare locked on him. “He’s twice your size,” she mutters, pitched for me alone. “And built like he chews nails for breakfast.”

I roll my cuff once, twice—fire tickling under my skin. “Good. Maybe he’ll last longer than the dummies.”

Her ponytail tilts like punctuation. “Or maybe you’ll go nuclear and singe off my eyebrows again.”

“That was one time,” I whisper, heat curling in my throat with the memory. “And you still looked gorgeous.”

Her elbow brushes mine, sharp, not affectionate. “Focus, Firebrand. This isn’t about looking pretty.”

“Wrong.” My teeth flash as molten eyes stay pinned on me. “It’s always about looking pretty. And winning.”

That earns me a side-glance—equal parts exasperated and fond—before her gaze snaps back to him. She’s still half a step in front, like stubbornness alone could block molten-amber steel.

Tharion’s voice cracks across the yard like a whip.

“Roran Ashvane. Step forward.”

The soldier obeys, bootfalls steady. His bow is sharp—discipline, no flourish. Respect meant only for Tharion.

When he rises, his molten eyes fix on me. Unblinking. Measuring. Not curious, not deferential. Just weighing, like I’m a weapon half-forged and he’s been told to see whether I’ll shatter in the fire.

My fingers twitch, cuff rolling once, twice, three times. Fabric squeaks under nail. Fire hums restless under my skin, eager to be proven. Not yet. I won’t need it.

Tharion’s gaze flicks between us. “Your opponent.”

The words hit like a spark to tinder. Finally. Not another week of stances until my thighs screamed. Not drills until sweat burned my eyes. A fight.

We circle, boots rasping on marble slick with dawn dew. Roran keeps his center low, balanced, patient. Too patient. His scent carries on the cool air—iron smolder, cedar singed. Battlefield musk. Controlled. Steady. Where mine clamors volatile, hot.

The yard presses in, every glance of his molten eyes a weight.

Fine. If he won’t move, I will.

I dart forward. Jab—quick, sharp. His arm comes up late; my knuckles graze his ribs. Thrill bolts through me. I spin, sweep low. My heel clips his stance, solid, enough to rock him half a step.

A laugh bubbles sharp in my throat, but Cassie beats me to it.

“That’s my wife!” she shouts from the sidelines, voice slicing the still air.

Heat surges harder than the strike. My fire flares, singing under skin, stoked by her claim like she owns the right to summon it.

Roran adjusts. Subtle, but there—the set of his jaw, the shift in his stance. He isn’t underestimating me anymore.

The second time I lunge, he’s ready. His forearm smacks mine aside, bone jarring to the elbow. A counter punches toward my shoulder—fast, heavier than I expected. I twist, but not fast enough. Pain sparks hot where it grazes.

Then he presses.

Not wild. Not showy. Just relentless. Every step forward a weight, every strike compact, efficient. A soldier who’s lived through more than drills.

My blocks turn frantic. Arms shudder with each hit. Legs scream from days of dawn punishment. Breath rasps, sharp and ragged. He’s driving me back. Inch by inch.

“Faster,” Tharion barks, circling like a hawk. “You’re quick, but you’re lazy. You’ve forgotten your fire.”

The words land harder than Roran’s fists. Lazy. Forgotten. They dig into every crack left by Seara’s whispers, the Court’s smirks, every time someone said half-blood like half-anything.

Anger surges. Fire claws up, hot and wild, sparks bleeding from my fingertips before I can choke them down.

The tether between Cassie and me thrums, humming sharp as struck glass. Cassie’s breath catches—she feels it too, her presence flaring at the edge of mine.

Heat warps the air around my fists, light bending at the edges. Control frays, thin as spider-silk.

Just one slip. One breath. And I could unleash it. Burn him back. Prove I’m not soft. Prove I’m not less.

And gods, I want to.

The fire swells sharp in my chest, clawing up my throat, hungry to spill. Just one push, one snap of control, and Roran will learn what it means to face a Firebrand.

And then—

Nothing.

One flick of Tharion’s hand and the air is gone.

Not just gone—stolen. I see it, the shimmer in the wards, the snap of his fingers, the twist of oxygen ripped straight out of my lungs. My uncle didn’t need fire or steel. He just reached inside me and snuffed the breath from my chest.

Panic slams me instantly. My body convulses, ribs locking, throat dragging at nothing. Sparks gutter and die at my fingertips, collapsing inward like stars strangled before they can burn.

And yet even as my vision frays white, some furious shard of me catalogues the mechanics. The exact second the wards thrummed. How the fire inside me sputtered when it lost fuel. Fire without air is nothing. He’s showing me the flaw carved into my nature.

My chest spasms, back arches. I claw at the marble as if I can rake air from stone. My fire thrashes inward, eating at the hollow he carved, burning me from the inside out. My stomach knots hard, body betraying me worse than the suffocation. Shame floods hotter than panic as I realize what I’ve lost control of—soiling myself on the cold stone, in front of my uncle, my wife, and the soldier judging whether I’m worth forging at all.

Rage detonates sharp through the humiliation, but I can’t even draw breath to curse him.

Vision tunnels. Cassie’s scream rips the air I can’t. The tether hum falters, and that silence is worse than the void in my lungs.

My last coherent thought before blackness takes me isn’t fear. It’s fury. I should have shielded. I should have known.

Light hooks me back like a line through water. I gasp—air searing down raw throat, ragged, desperate. Relief nearly drowns me worse than the void.

Cassie’s face is the first thing I see, too close, too sharp. Her hands cage my jaw, anchoring me like she can will my soul to stay. Blue eyes frantic, wild—burning brighter than any fire.

And humiliation hits harder than the air itself. She saw me like that. She saw me break, filthy and choking, on my knees in front of Tharion. In front of Roran. My judge. My rival. My wife.

Even as Cassie demands I breathe, my brain is already rewinding the moment—her hands, his gesture, the shimmer of air bending. Filing it sharp. Because if he can do it, others can. And if I don’t learn from this, it’ll happen again.

Next time, Cassie might not be here to scream my name.

Behind her, Tharion stands like sunlit steel, arms folded, expression carved to stone. “Shield at all times. A foe like me doesn’t need to touch you to end you. Fire is useless without air.”

The words scrape raw across my chest. Fury spikes hotter than the panic still fizzing in my veins. I push up onto my elbows, glaring through the haze. “That’s not fair—I was fighting him. How am I supposed to do both?”

Silence stretches. Then—rare as rain in Summer—his mouth twists into the ghost of a smile. Iron and pride.

“That, my dear niece,” he says, voice low, “is why we train.”

His words clang final, like a closing gate.

But Cassie answers before I can.

She rises to her full height beside me, still bracing my shoulder with one hand like she’s ready to catch me if I tip. Her chin lifts, spine steel-straight, gaze locking on Tharion like judgment.

“You don’t get to call that training.” Each word sharp, deliberate, like a blade. “You cut off her air. You watched her collapse. You could have killed her.”

Her scent cuts through the scorched air—frosted citrus, camellia, vanilla gone sharp. Beautiful. Lethal.

Tharion’s bronze-hazel eyes narrow, not angry but calculating. Even the wards hold their breath.

“I would never kill her,” he says, voice unyielding. “But she has to understand what waits outside these walls. Mercy is not survival.”

Cassie doesn’t flinch. She steps closer, setting herself between us with clean precision, like she could hold off an army if she had to. “And breaking her to prove it? That’s survival?”

The silence after is knife-thin.

My heart slams, fire thrumming hot again—but not from rage this time. From her. From the captain’s ice she wears like armor, every shard pointed at him because of me.

Tharion studies her, rare smile gone, face unreadable. Finally, he inclines his head the faintest degree. Not apology. Not surrender. Just acknowledgment.

“She’ll need you, then. Both of you will need each other.”

Cassie’s jaw locks harder. “She already does.”

And for once, Tharion doesn’t argue.

Stone grit bites my palms as I push up, pretending my legs aren’t shaking. The world tastes like metal and embarrassment.

“Fine,” I rasp. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

Cassie crouches beside me, one hand firm at the small of my back, the other bracketing my jaw like she can force air into me by will. “You already did better than half his recruits,” she says, captain-quiet, no room for argument. Her scent—citrus frost over clean vanilla—cuts through the scorch. I inhale it like an order. One. Two. Three.

Across the yard, the soldier straightens from his guard stance. He bows—precise, economical—and turns toward the doors.

They open before he reaches them.

Seara doesn’t enter so much as the room rearranges itself around her. Silk whispers, heels strike stone, wards hum higher like they’re showing off. Dawnlight skims her profile and loses its nerve. Tharion turns his head half an inch: acknowledgment, not welcome.

Her gaze sweeps us with jeweler’s detachment: me sweat-slick and shaky; Cassie braced around me like she’s a weapon; Roran still as a spear; Tharion carved from iron patience. She catalogs. She does not care.

“Enough,” she says, and the yard obeys. “Get to know him.” A flick of her chin at the soldier. “He is yours now. You will not step beyond Emberhall—not even school—without your personal bodyguard.”

The collar snaps shut so cleanly I hear the click.

Cassie’s spine goes iron. “No.” Not volume. Temperature. A glacier sliding into a harbor.

I roll my sleeve cuff—one, two, three—fabric squeaking under nail. “We don’t need a chaperone,” I add, aiming for bored and landing brittle. “We’re not children.”

Seara’s lips curve the barest fraction, cold amusement. “He isn’t a chaperone. He is security. A wall. A blade. If he shadows you, it is not to coddle. It is to keep you breathing.”

She lets her attention rest on me like a ledger that won’t balance. Then on Cassie, like a blade left in the rain.

Her gaze sharpens, diamond-cut, unblinking. “And you, Mira, my sweet Summer child, are mine. And your wife, Cassie Firebrand”—the name lands like a brand, deliberate emphasis—“is yours. That makes me responsible for both of you.”

Cassie smiles without any kindness. “Responsible, or entertained?” she asks, ice clean. “Because this sounds like you prefer knowing exactly where we are and who’s in the room.”

“Both things can be true,” Seara says. She shifts her gaze past us, to the ghosts of our mistakes. “Since you seem fond of unsanctioned excursions… shall we discuss your delightful spa visit? The one where the Shroud tried to parcel you up like merchandise? Where my daughter burned her lungs half-out and then confessed her love in a hallway with ward-scorch still smoking?”

Heat flares behind my sternum. Cassie goes marble-still. Love. The word lands in both of us like a knife, blade-first.

“We had a plan,” I say, chin high so it doesn’t wobble.

“You had a fantasy,” Seara corrects, too gentle to be kind. “Plans account for variables. Fantasies expect applause.” Her gaze cuts to Tharion. “You taught her the cost of an unguarded breath. Good.”

Cassie rises, deliberate, interposing herself between me and my mother like she’d stand between me and steel. “Install a guard at her door if you must,” she says. “Not in our lives. Not at school.”

“School,” Seara repeats, tasting it like something foreign. “The place where humans travel in packs and gossip like sport. Where my daughter plays human and lets her magic atrophy. Where the Shroud scouts their recruits because fear and youth make a very useful alloy.” She inclines her head toward the soldier. “Roran goes wherever either of you goes. He is not a chaperone. He is a wall that moves.”

Roran doesn’t flinch at being discussed like a spear on a rack. “My oath is to your safety,” he says, voice even, low. “I see threats, not lovers.”

Cassie slides him a look that would ice a river. “Then see the door.”

“If you ask,” he replies, “I will be facing it.”

The honesty almost makes me hate him less. Almost.

“Absolutely not,” I snap, fire clawing up my throat. “I’m not parading a soldier through Ravenrest like a court banner.” I can already hear the hallway whispers—Quinveil with a handler? Rumor mold spreading under locker doors. “It’s the one normal place—”

“Where you wear borrowed masks,” Seara says, bored again, “and your instincts rot for the sake of cafeteria politics. Normalcy is a religion for people who’ve never been hunted.” Her eyes pin me. “I will not lose what I have built in you to teenage bravado or human nostalgia.”

Built. Invested. As if I’m a tower she laid brick by brick. My teeth bare. “So that’s what I am? A project?”

“You are my heir,” she says simply. “And very young.” Not an insult. A sentence. “You will be guarded until you are not.”

Cassie steps closer, our shoulders pressed. “You don’t get to call me hers,” she says, voice like frost over razors. “I chose her. She chose me. You can stamp a ring on that. Doesn’t make me your asset.”

Seara’s mouth almost curves. Almost. “I find assets duller than you.” She lets it sit, then adds, lazy as a cat stretching on a throne: “Keep your doors open, close them—I do not care. Break the bed, practice restraint until it squeaks, whisper vows if it amuses you. I. Do. Not. Care.” Her eyes catch mine, cutting deep. “I know about your vow at Ravenrest Overlook. Even in that car you thought was private. I hear everything. Even then.”

Roran bows a fraction, accepting the leash as if it were a sword belt.

My cuff squeaks—one, two, three. My fire licks up, offended and grateful all at once. Grateful, because the Shroud did almost take us. Offended, because my mother turns even survival into a leash.

“Mother,” I say sweetly, “what if I say no?”

“Then Tharion pulls you from school,” she says without heat. “Your Small Folk petitions wait in a drawer. Your human friends who think Mira Quinveil is merely ‘a tad intense’ will forget you by midterms.” She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. “Choose your leash—visible or invisible. But you will wear one.”

Cassie’s pinky hooks mine, ruthless precision. Grounding. My breath brackets to it despite myself.

Tharion finally speaks, voice low as a whetstone. “He’s competent.” A beat. “And he listens.”

Cassie doesn’t look at him. “He’ll listen when I say back off?”

“If safety allows,” Roran says, neutral as a locked door.

“Riveting,” she replies, frost-edged.

Seara exhales the softest breath, like boredom winning. “Glamours immaculate,” she says, already turning. “Should anyone ask, he is a cousin from Eversea. He leaves with you for Ravenrest at eight.” She glances back once, pins me where I stand. “Protest efficiently if you must. Then do as you’re told.”

She pivots. The wards seem to bow. The door closes behind her like a mouth swallowing light.

Silence razors the yard.

Cassie exhales slow, a captain bleeding tension without showing the wound. “She thinks he’s a leash,” she says for me alone. “We make him a wall we can move.”

I almost laugh. I grin instead, feral at the corners. “Or a knife we point.”

Across the space, Roran remains exactly where she left him. Not staring. Not pretending not to. Simply there—smoldering iron and cedar, a problem with boots.

The tether thrums between me and Cassie—frustration, defiance, inevitability braided tight. We both feel it: we will play along just enough to live.