Page 88 of The Vespertine Treaty

They left. The heavy door slammed shut, the lock engaging with a final, booming thud.

I was alone.

The silence rushed back in, heavy and suffocating. The pain in my cheek throbbed. The cold seeped into my bones.

But even as I huddled there, shivering in the dark, the fire in my chest didn't go out. Her words had been meant to destroy me, but they had only terrified me with a new truth.

I wasn't just scared of dying. I wasn't just scared of losing myself.

I was scared of him not finding me.

I let my head fall forward, my hair curtaining my face, and for the first time since I woke up, I allowed myself to weep. Not for my life, but for the twisted, impossible longing that was currently the only thing keeping me warm.

CHAPTER 32

CAIN

Ididn't leave immediately.

I spent ten minutes in the courtyard, staring at the moon, forcing the berserker back into its cage. If I rode out now, fuelled only by rage, I would burn the entire city down before I found her.

I needed intelligence.

I looked down at Rhana, who was pacing around the hooves of my warhorse, her teeth bared at the shadows.

"The Consortium," I said to her, swinging into the saddle. "The snakes will know where the other snakes hide."

Rhana let out a low, agreeing snarl, her form rippling as she dissolved into the darkness to run alongside me.

The Consortium was a festering hive of politicians and liars, and right now, I wanted to burn it down with everyone inside.

I didn't walk through the gilded halls; I tore through them. My magic rolled off me in waves of suffocating frost and shadow, darkening the enchanted lanterns that lined the high ceilings.Beside me, Rhana was a blur of obsidian muscle and teeth. My lethal familiar—a shadow-stalker, almost the size of a warhorse—was usually disciplined, but she fed off my emotions. And right now, I was a tuning fork, vibrating with a frequency that didn't belong to me.

A clerk, foolish enough to be holding a stack of parchments in the middle of the corridor, didn't move fast enough.

Rhana didn't growl. She simply launched.

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the hallway as the massive beast pinned the male to the marble floor, her jaws snapping inches from his face. He screamed, dropping his papers, scrabbling backwards on the slick stone.

Suddenly, a screech pierced the air—high, shrill, and vibrating with magic.

A flash of violet feathers swooped down from the high rafters.

Vesper.

Consul Althea’s familiar, a Great Horned Owl the size of a shield, didn't land on the clerk. The bird banked sharply, talons extended, and landed heavily on top of a marble pillar directly above Rhana. The owl spread its massive wings, glowing with a faint, purple aura, and stared Rhana down with unblinking, golden-orange eyes.

"Control your beast, Cain! Before Vesper blinds her."

The voice was sharp, authoritative, and annoyingly familiar.

I stopped, looking down at the terrified clerk cowering beneath my shadow-stalker, then lifted my gaze to the female descending the grand staircase.

Consul Althea. She wore the silver and blue robes of her station, her face a mask of diplomatic steel, though I could see the pulse jumping in her throat. She feared me. They all did. But Althea was smart enough to hide it behind protocol.

She stood tall, her hand resting on the banister, radiating the kind of quiet, luminous authority that only a High Aenite Consul could wield.

"Rhana," I commanded softly. "Stand down."