The room was colder than the air outside.
The hearth was grey with old ash, long dead.
The only light came from a single candle on a wooden crate, its flame steady and small, as if it too was holding its breath.
The walls were bare stone.
A bucket in the corner had frozen over.
The only sound was the terrible, wet rasp of a woman drowning in her own lungs.
Cassian stood in the doorway.
He did not move.
On the bed, the woman was dying.
Elise.
Nineteen years old when his father had cast her out.
Now she looked sixty, her face hollow, her lips blue, her hands curled on the rough blanket like the claws of a bird.
Her eyes were closed.
Her breath came in shallow, uneven gasps, each one a battle she was losing.
Beside the bed, on a low stool, sat a child.
She was small for ten.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a rough braid.
Her dress was patched and faded, and her feet were bare despite the cold.
She was holding the woman’s hand, her small fingers wrapped tightly around the thin, motionless ones.
When she heard the door, she looked up.
Her eyes were grey.
The Elvenstone grey.
Like his own.
The child froze.
She knew his face.
Her mother had described it to him a hundred times, every night for ten years.
The dark hair.
The sharp cheekbones.
The cold eyes.
The same grey eyes that looked back at her from the mirror.
She did not scream.
She did not move.
She simply stared at him, and her face went white as the snow outside, and her small body began to tremble uncontrollably.
“Mama,” she whispered.
“Mama, he’s here.” Elise opened her eyes.
They were brown, clouded with fever, and they moved slowly across the room until they found the figure standing in the doorway.
When she saw him—when she recognized the face, the jaw, the grey eyes that were so like the ones that had stared down at her nineteen years ago—she made a sound that was not a word.
It was a whimper.
A broken, animal sound of pure terror.
“No,” she breathed.
“No.
No.
Not yet.
Please.
Not yet.” She tried to sit up.
Her body would not let her.
She collapsed back onto the thin mattress, coughing, a wet, tearing sound that shook her whole frame.
Her hand flailed, searching for her daughter.
“Seraphina.
Seraphina, come here.
Come to me.
Get behind me.” “Mama, I can’t—” “Get behind me!” The child scrambled onto the bed, pressing herself against the wall, trying to make herself small.
Her grey eyes never left Cassian’s face.
She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered.
Elise gathered what little strength she had left and pushed herself up against the headboard.
She spread her arms, shielding her daughter with her own dying body, a human wall of skin and bone and terror.
“Please,” she said.
Her voice was a rasp, a whisper, a thing already half-dead.
“Please, my lord.
I know what I am.
I know what she is.
But please—she’s just a child.
She’s done nothing wrong.
She doesn’t know anything.
She doesn’t know who she is.
Please.
Take me if you must.
I’m dead already.
But let her live.
Let her go.
She won’t tell anyone.
She won’t claim anything.
Please.
Please.” Cassian did not move.
He stood in the doorway, his face unreadable, and he watched a dying woman beg for her daughter’s life.
“Please,” Elise whispered again.
Her voice was failing.
“I’ll do anything.
I have nothing, but I’ll give you whatever you want.
Just don’t hurt her.
Don’t take her.
She’s all I have.
She’s all I’ve ever had.
Please.” Gerhardt stepped forward from behind Cassian.
His face was wet with tears.
“Elise,” he said softly.
“Elise, it’s all right.
He knows.
He came to help.” Elise looked at the old steward.
Recognition flickered in her clouded eyes.
“Gerhardt?
You…
you brought him here?” “He came of his own accord.
He came because I told him the truth.
He is not the man his father was.” Elise shook her head, a frantic, desperate motion.
“You don’t know.
You don’t know what they’re like.
The old duke—his father—he—” She broke off, coughing.
When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible.
“He took everything from me.
Everything.
And when I told him I was with child, he laughed.
He laughed and he had me thrown out.
No money.
No name.
Nothing.
I had to beg.
I had to—” “Mama.” Seraphina’s small voice cut through.
“Mama, don’t.
You’ll make yourself worse.” Elise turned her head.
Her daughter was pressed against the wall, still trembling, still staring at Cassian with those grey eyes that were so exactly like his.
“I’m sorry,” Elise whispered to her.
“I’m sorry.
I tried to keep you safe.
I tried.” Cassian stepped forward, into the light of the candle.
Elise flinched, her arms tightening around her daughter.
He stopped.
He did not come closer.
He lowered himself to one knee, there on the cold stone floor, and he spoke for the first time.
“Elise.” She stared at him.
Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps.
“My father is dead,” Cassian said.
“He has been dead for ten years.
I am not him.
I have never been him.
And I am not here to hurt your daughter.” “Then why?” Elise’s voice cracked.
“Why are you here?” “Because Gerhardt told me she exists.
Because she is my blood.
Because she has been living in poverty and fear while I sat in a castle, and that is wrong.” Elise shook her head slowly.
She did not believe him.
Cassian could see it in her eyes—the years of fear, the years of stories, the years of waiting for the wolf to come.
She could not let herself believe him.
“I will swear it,” Cassian said.
“On my mother’s name.
On the name of Seraphina, the duchess who was kind to her servants.
I will take your daughter into my house.
I will give her my name.
I will protect her with my life.
No harm will come to her.
I swear it.” Elise stared at him.
Tears were streaming down her hollow cheeks.
“Your mother’s name,” she repeated.
“The duchess.
She was…
I never met her.
But the older servants said…” “She was kind,” Cassian said.
“They were right.” A sob escaped Elise.
It was a terrible sound—relief and grief and terror all tangled together.
She pressed her hand against her mouth, trying to hold it in.
“I’m dying,” she whispered.
“I know I’m dying.
I’ve known for weeks.
I held on as long as I could.
For her.” She looked at her daughter, and her face crumpled.
“I don’t want to leave her.
I don’t want to go.
She’ll be alone.
She’s so small.
She’s never been alone.
Who will brush her hair?
Who will tell her stories at night?
Who will—” “I will,” Cassian said.
Elise looked at him.
The fear in her eyes was still there, but it was fading, replaced by something else.
Something that looked almost like hope.
“You,” she breathed.
“You really mean it.” “Yes.” She stared at him for a long moment.
Then she turned to her daughter.
“Seraphina.
Come here, little one.” The child crawled out from behind her mother, still trembling, still watching Cassian with wary grey eyes.
Elise took her daughter’s face in her hands.
“Listen to me,” she said.
Her voice was fading now, each word a struggle.
“I have to go soon.
Do you understand?” “Mama, no—” “Listen.
Listen to me.
The stories I told you about the wolf.
About the duke.
I told you he would hurt you.
I told you he was a monster.” She paused, her breath rattling.
“I was wrong.” Seraphina stared at her.
“But you said—” “I know what I said.
I was afraid.
I’ve been afraid for ten years.
But he swore on his mother’s name.
Do you know what that means?” The child shook her head.
“It means he cannot break his word.
Not on her name.
The duchess was kind.
Everyone said so.
Her name is your name.
Seraphina.” Elise brushed a strand of hair from her daughter’s face.
“You are named for a kind woman.
And her son…
her son has your eyes.
Not the cold ones I told you about.
Just grey eyes.
Like yours.
Look.” Seraphina turned her head.
She looked at Cassian, at his grey eyes—her grey eyes—and for a long moment she said nothing.
Her small face was still wet with tears, still tight with fear.
“They’re like mine,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Cassian said quietly.
“Mama said the wolf has cold eyes.” “I know.” She stared at him a moment longer.
Then she turned back to her mother.
Elise pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more than the stars.
More than the sun.
More than anything in this world.
You are the best thing I ever did.
The only good thing.
Remember that.
Always remember that.” “Mama—” “I’m going to see the stars now.
The ones we watched from the window.
The Shepherd’s Star in the east.
Do you remember?” Seraphina was sobbing now, her small body shaking.
“I remember.
You said it watched over travelers.” “It will watch over you.” Elise’s voice was barely a breath.
“Be brave, little one.
Be brave for me.” She kissed her daughter one last time.
Then she looked at Cassian.
“Prove it,” she whispered.
“Prove you are not the wolf.” “I will,” Cassian said.
Elise nodded.
Then she closed her eyes.
Her hand slipped from her daughter’s cheek.
Her breath stilled.
And the woman who had been cast out, forgotten, left to die in a village that wasn’t on any map, was gone.
For one heartbeat, there was silence.
The candle’s flame stood perfectly still.
The wind held its breath.
Even the cold seemed to pause, waiting.
Seraphina did not scream.
Not yet.
She stared at her mother’s face, at the closed eyes and the slack mouth and the terrible stillness where there had always been motion—the rise and fall of breath, the flutter of eyelids, the small sounds a living person made without knowing it.
She stared and she waited, because maybe if she waited long enough, her mother would open her eyes again.
Maybe if she was very good and very quiet and didn’t move at all, the stillness would break and her mother would smile and say her name and everything would be the way it was before.
The candle flickered.
Her mother did not move.
“Mama?” she whispered.
“Mama, you’re not…
you’re just sleeping.
You’re just sleeping, right?
Mama?
Mama, please.
Please wake up.
Please.” She shook her mother’s shoulder.
The body shifted limply, without resistance, and that was worse than anything.
Mama would never let herself be moved like that.
Mama would never be so still.
“Please.
I’ll be good.
I’ll be so good.
I won’t ask for anything ever again.
I won’t complain about the cold.
I won’t cry when I’m hungry.
I’ll do everything you say.
Everything.
Just please—please don’t—” The tears came, hot and silent, and she could barely see.
And then the scream came.
It started low, somewhere deep in her belly, and it clawed its way up through her chest and her throat and it tore out of her mouth like something alive.
“MAMA!” She threw herself onto her mother’s body, her small fists clutching at the rough wool of the dress—the only nice dress Mama owned, the brown one with the patched sleeves—and she buried her face in her mother’s chest and she screamed.
She screamed until her voice splintered and broke.
She screamed until she had no breath left and the silence rushed back in, and then she screamed again.
“Mama.
Mama.
Mama.
Please.
Don’t leave me.
I don’t want to be alone.
I don’t know how to be alone.
Mama.
MAMA.” Her voice broke on the word, cracking into something barely human, a raw and broken wail that was worse than the screaming had ever been.
She was calling for the only person who had ever answered, and no one was answering, and the silence where her mother’s voice should have been was the most terrible thing she had ever heard.
Her tears soaked into the wool.
She could smell her mother—the faint sweetness of the herbs they boiled for tea, the smoke from the hearth, the particular warm smell that was only Mama and nothing else.
She pressed her nose into the fabric and breathed it in, because soon it would fade, and then there would be nothing left of her at all.
“I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was a whimper now, small and broken.
“Mama, I don’t know what to do.
You didn’t tell me what to do.
Who’s going to tell me what to do now?” She wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck, the way she had done every night when the nightmares came, and she waited for the arms that always wrapped around her in return.
They did not come.
They would never come again.
She lay there, her face pressed to her mother’s cold chest, her tears pooling in the hollow of her mother’s throat, and she wept until her eyes were raw and her throat was burning and her whole body was empty of everything except the vast, crushing weight of being alone in the world.
She did not know how long she lay there.
Minutes.
Hours.
The candle burned down to a stub.
The wind moaned in the chimney.
Her mother’s body grew colder beneath her.
And through it all, the man did not move.
He knelt on the stone floor, his head bowed, his hands resting on his knees, and he kept his vigil in the darkness.
He did not speak.
He did not reach for her.
He did not leave.
When the tears finally stopped—not because the grief was gone, but because her body had nothing left to give—Seraphina raised her head.
She looked at the door.
The old man was there, his face wet, his shoulders shaking.
The soldier stood behind him, his hand on his sword, his eyes red.
She looked at the man kneeling beside the bed.
His grey eyes were open, and they met hers.
He had not moved.
His face was still.
Whatever he felt was locked somewhere deep, behind walls she could not see.
“She’s gone,” she whispered.
Her voice was barely there, a rasp of air.
“My mama is gone.” “Yes,” the man said.
His voice was low and rough, but steady.
“She is.” “Are you going to kill me now?” She asked it without fear.
Not because she was brave—she was not brave, she was empty, scraped hollow—but because she had nothing left.
If the wolf was going to eat her, let him eat her.
At least then she would be with Mama again.
The man looked at her for a long moment.
His grey eyes were dry, but something in them made her think of the ice on the river in spring—solid on the surface, but cracking underneath.
“No,” he said.
“I am not going to kill you.” “Then what are you going to do?” He did not answer right away.
He looked at her as if she were something he did not know how to hold.
Something he was afraid of breaking.
“I am going to take you home,” he said.
“If you will let me.” Seraphina stared at him.
Home.
She did not know what that word meant anymore.
Home was the cottage in Ashwick, with the broken shutter and the cold hearth.
Home was her mother’s voice in the darkness, telling stories about the stars.
Home was gone.
But the man was still kneeling.
He had not moved, not once, since he knelt beside the bed.
He had not hurt her.
He had not even touched her.
He was still waiting.
“I don’t know where home is,” she whispered.
The man looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said, very quietly, “Neither did I.
For a very long time.
But I found one.
I will help you find yours.” Seraphina did not answer.
She did not know what to say.
But she did not pull away.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her bare feet dangling, her grey eyes watching the man with the grey eyes, and she stayed where she was.
And Cassian stayed where he was, kneeling on the cold stone floor, keeping his vigil as the candle finally guttered and went out, leaving them together in the dark.