Cade steps into the firelight, his face partially obscured by shadows. My assigned guard. The man who was supposed to protect me.
"Why?" I manage, my voice rough from disuse. "Why did you bring me here?"
He doesn't answer immediately; instead, moves to pour water from a pitcher into a wooden cup. His movements are controlled, but there's a tension in his shoulders I haven't seen before. When he approaches, I notice something different in his eyes—a coldness, an anger that makes me shrink back despite myself.
"Drink," he says, offering the cup.
I hesitate, eyeing it suspiciously.
"If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't bother with poison," he says flatly. "You'd already be dead."
Reluctantly, I accept the cup, the cool water soothing my parched throat. As I drink, I study his face, searching for answers.
"Where are we?" I ask, setting the empty cup beside me on the bed.
"Far enough from the palace that Malakai's shadows can't reach us easily," he replies, moving back to lean against the rough-hewn table. "A hunting cottage abandoned decades ago. No one will find us here."
"Us? So you're what—my kidnapper? My jailor?" I swing my legs over the side of the bed, fighting the wave of dizziness that follows. "Why, Cade? I thought you were loyal to the Shadow Court."
A bitter laugh escapes him, hollow and laced with something that sounds almost like grief. "Loyal to the Shadow Court? No. Never that."
"Then who?" I press, noting the way to the door, measuring the distance. "Who are you loyal to?"
He watches me calculate my escape, a small smile playing at his lips. "Don't bother. You wouldn't make it three steps before collapsing, and even if you could run, there's nowhere to go. We're surrounded by the Dead Forest. Without a guide, you'd be lost forever."
I straighten my spine, refusing to show fear. "You didn't answer my question."
"Who am I loyal to?" He repeats, tilting his head in a gesture that strikes me as strangely familiar, though I can't place why. "I was loyal to you, Sera. Only ever to you."
The nickname sends a chill through me. Cade has never called me that—only ever "Lady Seraphina" with formal deference. Only those closest to me used that name: my brother, my father, and...
"You don't recognize me?" he asks, something vulnerable flickering across his face. "Look closer. Really look at me."
I stare at him, confusion giving way to unease. Had I met him before arriving at the Shadow Court? No, my memory doesn't seem to have cataloged him. Yet there's something in the way he holds himself now, something in the cadence of his speech that echoes with painful familiarity.
"I don't understand," I say carefully. "I know who you are. You're Cade, assigned to my personal guard by Malakai himself."
"That's the vessel," he says, stepping closer. "Look at what's inside."
As he comes nearer, firelight catches his eyes, and for just a moment, I see a flash of amber overtaking their natural dark color. My breath catches.
"No," I whisper, disbelief warring with impossible hope. "It can't be."
"Why not?" he challenges, crouching before me so our eyes are level. "Because you saw me die? Because you watched Malakai tear my body apart?" Bitterness laces each word. "Death isn't always the end, Sera. Sometimes it's just a...transition."
I shake my head, refusing to accept what he's suggesting. "This is madness. You're not—you can't be?—"
"Ask me something," he interrupts. "Something only he would know."
My mind races, searching for something, anything that would prove or disprove this impossible claim. "The first gift you ever gave me," I say finally. "What was it?"
A smile touches his lips—not Cade's smile, but another's, heartbreakingly familiar. "A crescent moon pendant carved from white birch. You wore it on a leather cord hidden beneath your training clothes because your father forbade personal attachments between assassins."
My hand rises unconsciously to my throat where that pendant once rested. "That doesn't prove anything," I insist, though doubt creeps in. "You could have learned that from surveillance, from reports."
"Then ask me something else," he challenges. "Something no report could contain."
I swallow hard, and my mouth suddenly dries. "The night before my first major assignment—what did I confess to you?"
