CHAPTER 15 The Blade at My Throat

Everyone froze.

I felt the cold edge of Elira's dagger press against my skin, close enough that a single shaking breath could open a line across my throat. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard Cassian's voice, low and controlled, cutting through the ringing in my ears.

"Elira. Put the blade down."

"Stay back," she snapped, her voice cracking with something between grief and rage. "Stay back, or I finish this right now."

Cassian stepped into the moonlight slowly, both hands raised, his sword lowered at his side. Behind him, his soldiers held their positions, bows drawn but not firing, waiting for a signal that hadn't come yet.

"I know about Lyra," Cassian said. "Aurora told me everything you said. I didn't know, Elira. I swear to you, I didn't know what happened to her."

"Liar," Elira spat, though her hand trembled slightly against my throat.

"I've spent two years trying to find who killed her," Cassian continued, taking one slow step closer. "I doubled the guard on every wife I've had since. I built that keep search list myself. Ask any general standing behind me. I never stopped looking for the truth."

"Then why is she still dead?" Elira's voice broke completely now, raw and furious. "Why did nobody protect her? Why did nobody care enough to actually find the answer, until another princess showed up and made it convenient?"

"I care," Cassian said. "I cared then. I care now. But hurting Aurora won't bring Lyra back. It'll only mean two women are dead instead of one, and you'll spend the rest of your life exactly as trapped in grief as you are tonight."

I felt the blade waver slightly against my skin.

"Elira," I said quietly, my voice as steady as I could force it. "Look at me. Not at him. At me."

Her eyes flicked toward mine, wet and wild in the moonlight.

"I believe you," I said. "I believe Lyra didn't deserve what happened to her. I believe someone in this keep is still walking free after killing her, and I believe that's the real enemy you should be pointing that blade at, not me."

"You don't understand what it's like," she whispered. "Watching someone you love disappear a little more every day, and nobody around you seems to notice until it's too late."

"I understand exactly what that's like," I said. "I spent three years disappearing in front of a man who never once noticed. Please don't make me disappear again because you're angry at the wrong person."

For a long, terrible moment, nobody moved. The dagger stayed pressed against my throat, Elira's breathing ragged and uneven behind me.

Then, from somewhere deeper in the ruins, a weak voice called out.

"Elira, please." It was Petra, her voice shaking but clear. "This isn't what Lyra would have wanted. She used to bring me bread when nobody else would even look at me. She wasn't cruel like this. Don't become the thing that killed her."

Something in Elira's posture cracked.

Her hand slowly loosened, the dagger dropping an inch away from my throat.

That was the moment everything went wrong.

A shadow moved fast from behind one of the collapsed pillars, and before anyone could shout a warning, a figure lunged straight at Elira, tackling her hard to the ground. The dagger clattered against stone, spinning away into the dark.

"Marcus," Cassian shouted, recognizing the attacker instantly.

Marcus rolled off Elira, scrambling to his feet, a second dagger already gleaming in his hand.

"She was never supposed to talk," Marcus snarled, backing toward the shadows. "None of you were supposed to hear any of this."

"You're the one who's been helping her the whole time," I said, staring at him in disbelief. "Not Julian's little errand boy. Her partner."

"Julian's an idiot," Marcus said, sneering. "Convenient, but an idiot. Elira found me first, offered me more gold than that fool Alpha ever paid me in three years of loyal service. All I had to do was play messenger."

"And kill a stable boy," Cassian said coldly, stepping closer, sword raised now. "And drag two guards down a dry well."

"Loose ends," Marcus said with a shrug that made my stomach turn. "Wouldn't want anyone talking before tonight was finished."

Elira, still on the ground, stared up at Marcus with something close to horror.

"You killed them," she said slowly. "The guards. The stable boy. You never told me that."

"Did you really think we could pull this off without a little blood?" Marcus laughed, low and ugly. "You wanted revenge, Elira. I just made sure nobody stopped us before we got it."

"I never wanted anyone else to die," Elira said, scrambling backward, real fear crossing her face for the first time. "This was supposed to be about Lyra. Only Lyra."

"Plans change." Marcus's eyes flicked toward me, calculating, desperate. "And now I need a way out of this clearing."

Before anyone could react, he grabbed Elira roughly by the arm, yanking her upright and pressing his dagger against her throat instead, using her as a shield the same way she'd used me moments ago.

"Nobody move," Marcus barked, backing toward the darker edge of the ruins, dragging Elira with him. "I walk out of here, or she dies right in front of all of you."

"Marcus, let her go," Cassian warned, sword raised, his soldiers closing in slowly from every side.

"You don't get to give orders anymore, Alpha," Marcus snapped. "Not tonight."

He kept backing away, deeper into the ruins, Elira stumbling against him, terror written plainly across her face now that the danger had turned on her instead.

And then, from the darkness behind Marcus, another figure stepped calmly out of the shadows, silhouetted against the moonlight, watching the entire scene unfold with an expression I couldn't read.

Marcus froze.

"You," he breathed, his confidence cracking for the first time all night. "You're supposed to be dead."

The figure stepped fully into the moonlight, and my heart nearly stopped in my chest.

It was Julian.

But not the desperate, pleading man who had stood outside the Iron Keep's gate begging for forgiveness.

This Julian was calm. Cold. Smiling.

"Hello, Marcus," Julian said quietly. "Did you really think I'd let you finish this without me?”