Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Burn of a Dying Star
Cassian’s POV
The Sun-Mark on my chest was no longer a blessing; it was a cage. It throbbed against my ribs, a rhythmic, white-hot pulse that felt like molten lead circulating through my veins. Every breath I took in the Oak-haven Valley tasted of scorched earth and hopelessness.
“My Lord, the heat is becoming... oppressive,” Kael murmured. My Captain of the Guard was a man of iron, yet even he was sagging in his saddle. The gold-glass plating of our armor magnified the noon glare until the world seemed to vibrate with a lethal, shimmering intensity.
“The King demands the tithes, Kael,” I replied, my voice raspy from the dust. “If the ground is dry, my father wants to know why the moisture hasn’t been paid in prayers.”
We crested the final ridge, looking down into a secluded orchard. It should have been as dead as the rest of the province, but something was wrong. In the center of the skeletal trees, a patch of emerald-green grass breathed.
And in the center of that grass stood a girl.
She was kneeling, her dark curls damp with sweat. As she pressed her palms into the cracked dirt, a soft, silver radiance bled from her fingertips. The grass didn’t just grow; it surged. It was a rhythmic, lunar pulse—the forbidden “Night-Tide.”
“A Heretic,” Kael hissed, his hand tightening on his sun-spear.
“No,” I breathed. My Mark suddenly flared, but not with pain. It was a hollow, desperate ache, as if my fire was reaching for her cold. The air between us began to warp, creating a violet haze. I dismounted, my boots crunching on the dead soil, but as I stepped onto her green grass, the blades withered to ash beneath me.
She looked up. Her eyes were the color of woodsmoke, wide with a terror that cut deeper than any blade. She saw the Prince of Solis, and I saw the end of the world.
