The tavern had thinned by the time Cassian rose from his seat. Patrons had stumbled back into the night one by one, leaving behind only the smell of stale wine and smoke. The last candle on their table guttered low, wax pooled around its base like blood cooling on stone.
"Come," Cassian said, the single word soft but heavy with intent.
Lysander hesitated only a moment before following. The tavern's warped door groaned as Cassian pushed it open, and the night swallowed them whole.
The rain had not relented. Sheets of it poured from the heavens, striking rooftops and cobblestones alike. Veyruhn gleamed like obsidian under the storm, its crooked alleys glistening with reflections of pale lamps. Cassian walked without care for the downpour, his dark coat plastered to his form, hair slick against his brow. He moved with a grace that mocked the storm, as though the elements bent themselves around him.
Lysander trailed behind, boots splashing through shallow rivers, his breath ragged in the cold air. Something about Cassian's stride drew him forward, even as dread whispered at the edges of his mind. He could have turned back—should have—but instead, he followed.
"Where are we going?" Lysander asked at last. His voice was hoarse, lost beneath the storm.
Cassian didn't look back. "Where you can see."
"See what?"
"Yourself."
They wound through alleys Lysander had never dared to tread. Past shuttered shops and windows where candles burned in secret, past shrines half-drowned in rain, past the city's bones where the Regent's guards seldom walked. Veyruhn revealed a face to him now that few were allowed to glimpse—its scars, its shadows, its heart.
Cassian finally stopped before an iron gate twisted with rust. Behind it loomed the ruins of a chapel, its spire broken, its doors long rotted away. The storm pressed harder here, as though the heavens themselves had turned against the place.
Cassian pushed the gate open with a hand that barely seemed to touch it. The hinges groaned like a dying thing, but they yielded.
Lysander hesitated at the threshold. He had been raised to fear such places—ruins where gods once slept, where silence tasted of blasphemy.
Cassian's gaze slid back to him, unreadable. "Do you trust me?"
The question struck him harder than the rain. Trust? He had known Cassian scarcely an hour. Yet here, in the wreckage of the city, it was not about time. It was about gravity—the pull of something inevitable.
"Yes," Lysander whispered, though the word tasted like a lie.
Cassian nodded once and stepped inside.
The chapel's interior was a hollow shell. Shattered glass littered the floor, remnants of windows once painted with saints. Rain fell through holes in the roof, pooling around the broken altar. Moss crept over the stones, reclaiming what was once sacred.
Cassian moved to the center and stood in the wash of stormlight. For a moment, he looked like a figure out of scripture—fallen angel, condemned prophet. Then he turned, and the illusion shattered into something sharper, hungrier.
"You feel it, don't you?" Cassian asked.
Lysander swallowed. "What?"
"The emptiness. The ache. The sense that you are made for more than what you've been given."
Lysander's chest tightened. He had never spoken of it, not to Eira, not to the priests, not even to himself. That restless hunger that gnawed at him in the dead of night, that whisper that life as it was offered was not enough.
"Yes," he said, barely audible.
Cassian stepped closer. His presence filled the space between them, colder than the rain, hotter than fire. "That is why you are here. That is why you found me."
Lysander's breath quickened. The storm roared above, but inside the chapel all he heard was Cassian's voice, each word winding around his spine like a chain.
"What are you?" Lysander asked at last.
Cassian tilted his head, as though amused. "The better question is: what are you becoming?"
Before Lysander could reply, Cassian lifted his hand. Fingers traced along Lysander's jaw, cold as marble yet tender, almost reverent. Lysander shuddered, not from fear but from the unbearable clarity of the touch.
"You've been waiting," Cassian whispered. "For someone to see you. To claim you. To make you more."
The words were wrong, dangerous—but they filled Lysander like wine. He wanted to deny them, to pull away, but instead he leaned closer.
Cassian's lips curved. "Then let me show you."
The kiss came not like lightning, but like the slow unfolding of a blade. Cassian pressed his mouth to Lysander's, cool and commanding, his hand tightening at the back of his neck. Lysander gasped into him, the taste of storm and iron sharp on his tongue. The world fell away—the rain, the ruins, the city itself. There was only Cassian, endless and consuming.
When Cassian pulled back, Lysander was trembling. His lips burned, his body ached with want he had no name for.
"You see now," Cassian murmured, his forehead resting briefly against Lysander's. "There is no turning back."
Lysander's knees felt weak. His breath hitched as he whispered, "Then don't let me."
Cassian's smile was both triumph and tragedy. "Good."
They stood there as the storm raged, bound by a kiss that felt like a vow neither had spoken aloud.
The walk back to the city's heart was slower. Cassian did not hurry, and Lysander did not question. The night had shifted; everything seemed sharper, edges gleaming where before there had been only blur.
They passed a narrow alley where the faint glow of lanterns flickered. Within, two men kissed against the wall, their hands clutching at each other with desperation. Lysander felt Cassian pause beside him, eyes fixed on the scene.
"They hide," Cassian said quietly. "Because the Regent would burn them for less."
Lysander's stomach knotted. He had seen the pyres before—lovers tied back to back, flames consuming their screams. He had looked away, because looking was unbearable.
"Would you hide, Lysander?" Cassian asked.
Lysander turned to him, the question catching in his chest. "No."
Cassian's eyes glimmered, approval flashing like a blade. "Good."
They moved on, leaving the alley behind, but the image seared itself into Lysander's mind. He wondered if one day he and Cassian would be the ones pressed against the wall, or the ones dragged to the fire.
When they reached Lysander's street, the storm had softened to a steady drizzle. The small, crooked house he shared with Eira glowed faintly with lamplight.
Cassian stopped just short of the steps. "She waits for you."
Lysander frowned. "How do you know?"
"I know." Cassian's voice carried no explanation, only certainty. He reached out, brushing a damp strand of hair from Lysander's forehead. "Go to her. She will ask questions. Tell her nothing."
Lysander swallowed. "And if she insists?"
"Then she proves she was never truly your friend."
The words cut deeper than Lysander expected. Eira had been the only constant in his life, the one who stitched his wounds, who whispered prayers when nightmares left him shaking. To deny her felt like betraying the last piece of his humanity.
Yet when Cassian's hand lingered against his face, cool and steady, Lysander could not imagine turning away.
"Tomorrow," Cassian whispered, his lips ghosting against Lysander's ear. "I will find you. Be ready."
Then he was gone—slipping into the mist as though the night itself had swallowed him.
Lysander stood in the drizzle, his heart pounding, his lips still tingling from Cassian's kiss. He felt as though the ground beneath him had shifted, as though the city itself tilted toward some unseen fate.
When at last he pushed open the door, Eira was waiting by the fire. Her eyes widened at the sight of him—soaked, pale, trembling.
"Where have you been?" she demanded, rising to her feet.
Lysander opened his mouth, but Cassian's voice echoed in his mind: Tell her nothing.
And so he smiled, thin and fragile. "Nowhere," he said. "Just… walking."
Eira's gaze sharpened. She stepped closer, cupping his face in her hands. "Your lips are bleeding."
He touched them, startled to find the faintest trace of red.
Her eyes narrowed. "Lysander… what did you do?"
He drew a shaky breath, Cassian's shadow still heavy on his skin. "I saw myself."
Eira froze, confusion clouding her features. "What do you mean?"
But Lysander only shook his head. He could not tell her. Not yet.
Not when his soul had already begun to slip into Cassian's hands.