Chapter 3

They didn’t come for me until the light filtering through the high window shifted from a dreary grey to a reluctant golden hue, signifying it was midmorning. Time down here crawled like molasses, and my wrists had gone numb hours ago. I’d given up fighting it; struggling only drained the precious strength I would need for what was to come.

Then he appeared: Cassian, alone this time, devoid of a torch, just the pale daylight illuminating his weary, watchful face framed by the bars. 

“The King had a private study,” he said, stepping closer, no greeting offered. “Sealed since his death. My men found a section of old Lycan script in it; pre-Unification dialect, nothing any soldier here can read. I need it translated.”

“And you thought of the human prisoner accused of his murder?” I shot back, raising an eyebrow.

Cassian’s lips curved into the hint of a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I thought of the scholar who spent five years poring over treaties older than my grandfather,” he countered sharply. “Don’t confuse the roles just because it’s convenient for you.”

I almost laughed at that. Almost. “You want my mind, but not my innocence.” 

“I haven’t decided about your innocence,” he replied, unlocking the cell with a rusty key, the sound echoing the fate of countless others who had occupied this space. “Try anything, and I won’t hesitate to end you without waiting for the Prince’s permission.”

The sincerity in his voice left no room for doubt, and strangely, it was oddly reassuring. There was no theatricality in Cassian; no cruelty put on for an audience, just a soldier executing his duty with ruthless efficiency. It was more than I could say for his prince.

The King’s study lay two floors up, behind a door bound in cold black iron. Inside, it smelled of cold ash and aged parchment, a  scent I recognized intimately, a bittersweet reminder of childhood homes: dust mingling with leather and the mustiness of fragile paper too precious to handle recklessly. Someone here had cherished books enough to preserve this room in its intended state, and despite myself, I felt a twinge of affection before the chilling reminder of the blood that had likely stained that very desk just nights prior returned.

Cassian gestured toward a shelf cluttered with loose vellum sheets, their edges curling, ink faded to a color reminiscent of dried blood. “These,” he said. “Start here.”

I picked up the first sheet, and the words began to swim into focus; old Lycan, formal court dialect—the kind reserved for treaties and death warrants. My heart quickened as I realized what I was holding. This wasn’t a diary or a love letter; it was a contract sealed with the King’s signet, and the language within sent my stomach plummeting.

“Should the border treaty of the Solis accord ever be broken, the crown reserves the right to erase the bloodline entirely; root, seed, and name before the sun sets twice.”

Solis. The name registered in my mind, igniting a stubborn denial that insisted I didn’t recognize it. I repeated that thought to myself like a chant, the way one calms their fears, reminding myself that the strange noises in the dark were just the house shifting.

“What does it say?” Cassian’s gaze was fixed on me, too closely, making me uneasy.

“It’s old border law,” I replied, folding the truth tightly within and wrapping it in a safer narrative. “Contingencies for treaty violations. Nothing about the murder.”

He scrutinized me for a moment longer, and I held his gaze, refusing to blink. I had learned early that flinching in front of men who doubted you was akin to confessing guilt.

“Keep reading,” he finally ordered, turning to check the door. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

Twenty minutes later, the door swung open without warning, and Lucian filled the doorway like a storm cloud against the horizon, the pressure shifting before the storm arrives. His attention was drawn to me, to the vellum in my grasp, to the ink staining my fingertips. Something in his jaw tightened, as if he caught me pilfering secrets.

“What is she reading?” he demanded of Cassian, but his piercing gaze remained locked onto mine.

“Old border law,” I jumped in before Cassian could respond. “Nothing that concerns you.”

“Everything in this room concerns me,” Lucian snapped, stepping close, his presence electrifying, like a held breath that couldn’t escape. He snatched the sheet from my hands, scanning the script, and I felt my heart race, waiting for recognition to flicker across his features, waiting for the word Solis to strike him as it had me.

But it didn’t. His eyes danced over the text the way a man reads a language he knows but has never needed, and a strange, unwelcome relief washed over me. Whatever this document meant, he was as in the dark as I was.

“Border law,” he echoed flatly, tossing the sheet back onto the shelf. “Then it’s useless to us.”

“Everything in this room is useless until someone stops interrupting the translation,” I shot back, my frustration bubbling.

His gaze snapped back to me, sharp and dangerously focused. “You forget your position, human.”

“I forget nothing,” I retorted defiantly. “I simply don’t see why I should express gratitude for a cell and a bruised face.”

For a heartbeat, something flickered behind his eyes—less softness, I hastened to remind myself, more like a wolf recalibrating its approach, and I braced myself for whatever came next

“Finish the translation,” he instructed Cassian, already turning toward the door. “And keep her chained to that shelf if you must. I don’t trust her with free hands in a room full of my father’s secrets.”

“Your father’s secrets seem to trust me more than you do,” I called after him, my voice tinged with defiance. “Maybe that’s what should worry you.”

He paused in the doorway but didn’t turn back. “Everything about you worries me,” he murmured, almost to himself, before vanishing into the corridor, his boots echoing like the retreat of a man too proud to admit weakness.

Cassian lingered for a moment, studying the empty doorway before his gaze shifted back to me, filled with a complex mix of caution a recalibration of his trust, perhaps, or maybe a lingering thread of suspicion.

“What did that document really say?” he asked quietly.

I cast my eyes down to the vellum, the word Solis still burning in my mind like the afterglow of the sun.

“Border law,” I replied once more, the lie slipping from my lips more easily this time. An instinct older than fear whispered that whatever truth lay behind that single word would spell doom if it fell into Lucian’s hands, far worse than if I kept it to myself.

Cassian didn’t press further. Instead, he offered me the next sheet, and I bent back over the desk, pouring half-truths into vibrant narratives while the real truth curled silently in my chest, waiting for the moment when it could strike.