Chapter 4 The Blade and the Thief

The road back to the Empire was paved with ghosts.

Cassia and Titus traveled under darkness, avoiding main roads, skirting patrols. Every village whispered warnings of a growing resistance, of strange markings etched into stone where she passed. Cassia said little. Titus talked enough for both of them.

"You ever consider not looking so angry all the time?" he asked one night, while they camped under an olive tree. "Might help with morale."

Cassia didn't look up from sharpening her blade. "Morale dies slower than betrayal."

Titus whistled low. "Remind me not to fall in love with you."

"Good. I'd hate to bury another fool."

They reached the outskirts of the capital after ten days. Smoke curled above the marble rooftops, and the banners of the House Corvus snapped in the breeze-golden crows against red silk. Cassia's stomach twisted.

This city had once sung her name in celebration.

Now it wanted her dead.

They needed passage through the outer wall, and they found it in the form of Selene, a streetwise thief who could climb palaces and cut purse strings in a single blink. Titus knew her from his fighting days; Cassia didn't trust her, but she was fast, clever, and could forge any seal.

Cassia met her at the edge of a market square, where guards patrolled too slow and eyes darted too quick.

"She's intense," Selene muttered to Titus after one look. "Where'd you find her?"

"In a ruined temple, bleeding and spitting at the sky."

Selene grinned. "My kind of girl."

That night, dressed in servant garb, Cassia entered the capital.

No one recognized her. Not yet. The years had changed her. Her hair was shorter. Her voice harder. Her eyes haunted. But the moment her foot touched imperial stone again, something ancient stirred beneath her skin.

She felt him.

Marcus.

He was close.

And she was no longer his to command-or forgive.