The morning hit like a knife.
Alina doubled over the porcelain sink, clutching the cold marble with trembling fingers as another wave of nausea crashed through her. Her body was slick with sweat, hair sticking to her temples, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. The retching echoed in the silence.
Cassian stood in the doorway, expression unreadable. His tie hung loose around his neck, jacket abandoned somewhere in the hallway. He hadn't said a word when he found her like this—just watched.
When she finally stopped, gasping, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and whispered, "Don't say it."
"I didn't," he murmured, stepping in. "Yet."
She tried to stand straighter, composing herself with that same spark of pride she always wielded like armor. "I'm fine. Something I ate."
"You don't eat anything without me knowing what's in it," he said. Calm. Flat. Razor-sharp. "Unless you're hiding something."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not everything's a secret mission, Cassian."
He didn't reply. Instead, he turned and walked out.
Alina expected silence to follow—but seconds later, he returned with a glass of cold water and a soft towel. He placed them beside her wordlessly.
"What's this?" she asked.
His eyes met hers. "Care. Suspicion. Take your pick."
She let out a breathy laugh despite herself. "God, you're exhausting."
"And yet you never run far."
Their gazes locked—wary, knowing, bitter—and yet beneath it, something fragile. Something neither dared name.
—
Later that afternoon, Cassian stood at the far end of the estate's war room, hands clasped behind his back, staring at a string of surveillance photos displayed on the massive screen. His jaw was tight. Alina sat in the corner chair, chewing on a piece of fruit, her body curled into itself.
"This one again," he said, pointing.
A blurry image of a man—face always turned away—appeared again and again near their safehouses, their transport hubs, even near the dock the night they'd escaped her father's trap.
"He's not random," Cassian muttered. "He's ghosting our moves. Every time we shift, he's already near."
Alina leaned forward. "He's too clean to be one of my father's. And too quiet to be one of yours."
"So whose is he?" Cassian asked, voice dropping.
She didn't answer. Her stomach twisted again, and she pressed her palm to it instinctively. Cassian saw.
His eyes flickered to her hand. "Still sick?"
Alina pulled away. "Still alive."
He stepped forward slowly, crossing the room until he stood just above her. "If you are pregnant—"
"I don't know."
"I didn't ask if you knew, Alina," he said, quieter now. "I asked if."
She looked up at him, her teasing gone, replaced by something almost... tentative. "Would it matter?"
A long silence. Then:
"It would change everything," Cassian said.
—
That night, he didn't leave her room.
They didn't talk. Didn't make promises.
Cassian simply lay behind her, his chest pressed to her back, arms a cage around her waist. His breath stirred the hair at her nape. Her fingers found his and held.
She felt it when he kissed the back of her neck. Just once. Just soft.
And she felt it again when he whispered in the dark, "If you carry my child, I will burn every kingdom that tries to take it."
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She didn't sleep.
—
At 3:27 a.m., the east wing exploded.
Glass shattered inward like rainfall as a fireball swallowed the sky. Cassian shot up, pulling Alina down with him as debris hit the floor. His gun was already in his hand when his men stormed the room.
"Third enemy," Alina gasped.
Cassian's eyes were molten steel. "They've moved from shadow to flame."
He turned to her, touched her jaw. "You stay here."
"No."
"Alina—"
"No," she said again, fierce. "You said if I'm carrying your child, you'll burn for it. Then let me stand in the fire with you."
Cassian stared at her, then nodded once.
—
By dawn, they had three bodies, two still burning, and one message.
It was carved into the wall of the old chapel they'd used for safehouse briefings.
Just one line.
"Your weakness will destroy you."
Cassian stared at it for a long time.
Alina stood behind him, eyes sharp.
"Do you think they mean me?" she asked, half-sarcastic.
"No," he murmured, voice like frost. "They don't understand. You're not my weakness."
Alina turned to him.
"What am I then?"
Cassian looked at her fully. "You're the flame they'll choke on."
—
But that night, when she was in his arms again, and his hands moved possessively along her bare skin, when their mouths found each other in the dark, devouring what words could never say—
Cassian let himself forget.
Forget who she had been. Forget what she might still be.
He only knew one truth now:
If she burned him, he would still crawl through the ashes to reach her.