Chapter 69: The Old Ghost

Cassian had felt it before he saw it.

The faint scent of blood that carried on the wind long before Shadow’s Edge came into view.

He and Nalani had been riding hard for Shadow’s Edge two days ago. Alongside 20 of his personal vanguard of soldiers. He had meant to arrive with proposals. Trade routes to reroute. A dozen careful arguments to lay in front of his stubborn cousin about how they needed to find whoever was behind the plague attack.

Instead, he arrived to screaming.

The scent hit him first, blood, so much of it that his panther instincts nearly buckled his knees mid-stride. Smoke curled up from somewhere. Guards lay scattered across the stones like discarded dolls, some groaning, most of them silent in a way that made his chest go cold.

"Cassian—" Nalani’s voice rang besides him.

"I see it."

He didn’t wait for her. He tore off his coat mid-run, and by the time it hit the ground his bones were already cracking and reshaping, fur bursting white across his frame. He hit the courtyard in full panther form, paws tearing up gravel, eyes locked on the shape sprinting across the stones ahead of him.

Another panther. Dark-furred.

Cassian immediately slammed into the creature from the side, and they went rolling together across the stone. The other panther hit hard, skidded, and came up shifting, fur receding into skin, until a man knelt there in its place, breathing hard, blood-soaked.

Cassian shifted too, landing on two feet.

"Where do you think you’re going?" he asked.

The man snarled.

"Cassian."

Cassian went still.

He knew that face. Older now, harder, carved down by whatever hell he had survived, but he knew it.

"...Dorian."

The old general’s grin widened, blood staining his teeth. "You remember me too. How flattering. The whole family, it seems, has such fond memories."

"You’re supposed to be dead." Cassian’s tone stayed light, but his eyes had gone sharp, tracking every twitch of muscle in the man’s blood-slicked frame. "Everyone said you were dead."

"Everyone was wrong." Dorian rolled his shoulders. "Your uncle made sure of that, buried the truth right along with the men he experimented on. I simply declined to stay buried."

Behind them, Nalani skidded into the courtyard, taking in the carnage with a sharp inhale before her gaze locked onto Cassian and the bloodied stranger facing him down.

"My Lord—"

"Stay back," Cassian said, not taking his eyes off Dorian. "Find Leonidas. Take care of the wounded."

Dorian’s grin widened. "Your cousin? You won’t find him here. Ah, you see that one? He ran away with his tail between his legs. Hurried to go warn the Empress. But not without a parting gift from myself."

Ice speared through Cassian’s chest, but he didn’t let it show, didn’t let anything crack the careless mask he wore like armor. "Is that so."

Dorian tilted his head. "You know, I never got to properly meet you. You were somewhere far away, playing in the snow, blissfully ignorant of what your family did to the rest of us."

"I am terribly busy right now to catch up on old family history." Cassian spat out. "Perhaps another time. Preferably when you’re in chains."

He didn’t wait for a reply. He lunged.

Dorian met him head-on, and for several long seconds it was purely physical, claws and fists and the scrape of stone beneath them, two beast-blooded men trying to put the other down first. Cassian was faster, years of controlled training against Dorian’s strength. But Dorian was wild and unpredictable, and that made him dangerous in a way skill alone couldn’t account for.

A fist caught Cassian across the jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. He recovered fast, driving his elbow into Dorian’s ribs, but the older man twisted at the last second, and pain exploded along Cassian’s side as claws raked deep through fabric and flesh.

He staggered back, breath punched out of him, one hand pressed instinctively to the wound as blood welled beneath his fingers.

Dorian laughed, closing the distance again. "There it is."

Cassian’s vision swam at the edges, but he forced himself upright, forced his stance to hold even as his legs threatened to give. He wasn’t going to lose to this. Not here. Not with Leonidas already—

A blur of black fur slammed into Dorian from behind.

Nalani, fully shifted, teeth sinking into the man’s shoulder with a force that tore a scream out of him. More soldiers poured into the courtyard behind her, a wall of steel and snarling beastmen. Cassian watched through hazy vision as Dorian, already exhausted from whatever massacre he had left behind him inside the palace, finally began to falter under the combined assault.

He tried to fight them off, tried to shift again, but his body betrayed him, staggering, slowing.

"This isn’t over," Dorian spat, blood running freely down his chin now, eyes wild as they swept the courtyard full of armed soldiers closing in around him. "None of this is over."

With one final burst, he shifted and bolted, crashing through the treeline at the courtyard’s edge before anyone could close the gap. Two soldiers gave chase. Cassian watched them disappear into the dark, knowing, with a sinking certainty, that they wouldn’t catch him.

Not tonight.

"My Lord!" Nalani was at his side in an instant, human again, her hands hovering uselessly over the wound at his ribs. "You’re bleeding, we need to get you to a healer—"

"Later." Cassian muttered. "Nalani. Listen to me."

"Cassian—"

"The palace." He grabbed her wrist, forcing the words out. "Secure it. All of it. I want every corridor checked, every servant accounted for. No panic. Do you understand me? Shadow’s Edge cannot fall apart tonight, not on top of everything else."

"You’re injured. You need rest, not—"

"I will rest," Cassian bit out, swaying on his feet, "once I am certain the people of this palace are safe."

Nalani’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t argue further, not with that look in his eyes. She turned instead, barking orders at the soldiers flooding in, directing them toward the wings still dark and silent, toward the wounded scattered across the stones.

"The guards," Cassian rasped, catching her sleeve one more time before his grip weakened. "The ones who didn’t make it. See that they’re taken care of properly. They died defending this place. They deserve better than being left where they fell."

"I’ll handle it," Nalani said, voice tight. "I swear."

Cassian nodded, or thought he did. The courtyard had started to blur, edges bleeding into shadow, the sound of shouting and footsteps fading away.

The last thing he registered was Nalani’s arms catching him before he hit the ground, her voice frightened above him, calling his name over and over into the smoke-filled dark.

Then nothing at all.