Cassandra's POV
Because the shadows are already wrapping around my ankles.
They're cold, so cold they burn. I try to blast them with light, but they absorb it like water soaking into sand.
"What—" I gasp.
"Don't fight it," the voice says, amused. "The more you struggle, the tighter they hold."
A figure steps out of the darkness. A man—or something shaped like one. He's tall and thin, dressed in black, with eyes that shine like silver coins. When he smiles, his teeth are too sharp.
"Hello, little Contractor," he says. "I've been waiting to meet you."
Lucian moves faster than I can see, darkness exploding from his hands. It hits the man dead center.
The man doesn't even flinch.
He catches Lucian's attack in one hand and crushes it like paper. "Really, Morningstar? After three thousand years, that's the best you can do?"
"Let her go, Malachi." Lucian's voice is deadly calm. "She's not part of this."
"Oh, but she is." Malachi—the Master—walks closer. The shadows around my feet tighten, crawling up my legs. "The moment you bound her to you, she became the most important piece on the board."
Kieran lunges from the side, shadows whipping like blades.
Malachi waves a hand. Kieran flies backward and crashes into the wall so hard the stone cracks.
"Kieran!" Zara screams.
"Stay back!" Lucian shouts at her. To Malachi: "What do you want?"
"What I've always wanted. The Void's return. The end of this pathetic world. The beginning of true darkness." Malachi stops in front of me, studying my face. "And she's going to help me do it."
"Never," I spit.
He laughs. "You don't have a choice, child. Your power is the key—light and shadow combined. When the Void rises, it will need an anchor in this world. A vessel. Someone who can hold both creation and destruction."
My blood turns to ice. "You want to put the Void inside me."
"Smart girl." He reaches out to touch my face.
Light explodes from my hands—pure instinct, pure terror.
This time, it doesn't get absorbed. It hits Malachi square in the chest and sends him staggering backward.
For one second, he looks surprised.
Then angry.
"You dare—" he starts.
Lucian hits him with another blast of darkness. "Cassandra, the bond! Use the bond!"
I don't know what he means, but I feel it—that connection between us, that thread of power linking our souls.
I grab it and pull.
Lucian's power floods into me. Three thousand years of strength, of knowledge, of raw supernatural force. It mixes with my light, creating something new.
Something that makes Malachi's eyes widen.
"Impossible," he breathes.
I throw everything at him.
The combined power—light and dark perfectly balanced—hits like a bomb. Malachi screams as it burns him, actually burns him.
He dissolves into smoke and shadow, retreating toward the hole in the wall.
"This isn't over!" his voice echoes. "You can't hide from me, Contractor. I'll find you. I'll break you. And when I do, you'll beg me to let the Void consume you!"
Then he's gone.
The shadows around my feet disappear. I collapse, and Lucian catches me.
"I've got you," he murmurs. "You're safe."
"That was the Master?" My voice shakes. "That thing wants to put an ancient evil inside me?"
"Yes. But he won't. I won't let him." Lucian helps me stand. "We need to move. Now. He'll be back with reinforcements."
Kieran groans from where he hit the wall. Zara rushes to help him up.
"Can you walk?" she asks.
"Yeah. Just bruised." He looks at me with something like respect. "You hurt him. I've never seen anyone hurt the Master before."
"The bond," Lucian explains quickly. "When she channeled my power through her light, it created something he couldn't defend against. Something new."
"Something that pisses him off," Zara adds. "Which means he'll be coming back angry."
"Then we leave before he does." Lucian pulls out his phone and makes a call. "Raphael. I need a favor. Yes, it's that urgent. No, I can't explain over the phone. Just meet me at the old location in one hour." He hangs up.
"Who's Raphael?" I ask.
Lucian's jaw tightens. "My brother. An archangel. The only being I know who can hide us from Malachi's tracking spells."
"Your brother is an angel?" My head spins. "But you're fallen—"
"It's complicated." He starts walking toward the stairs. "Pack light. We leave in ten minutes."
Everyone scatters. I run to my room and grab the few things I have—clothes Zara lent me, my dead phone, nothing else.
When I come back down, half the Shadow Court is ready to move.
"They're coming with us?" I ask Lucian.
"No. They're creating a diversion. Making Malachi think we're still here while we escape." He hands me a jacket. "Put this on. Where we're going is cold."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere between worlds. Somewhere even I barely understand." He looks at me seriously. "It's going to be dangerous. And once we're there, we can't leave until we figure out how to stop Malachi permanently."
"So we're trapped."
"We're safe. There's a difference."
Zara hugs me tight. "Don't worry. I'm coming too. Someone needs to keep you two from killing each other."
Despite everything, I smile.
Kieran appears with a bag full of weapons. "Ready when you are, boss."
Lucian nods. He takes my hand, and I feel power surge through the bond.
"Hold on," he says. "This is going to feel strange."
Darkness wraps around us like a blanket. The world tilts, spins, turns inside out.
When it stops, we're somewhere else entirely.
We're standing in a forest that glows. The trees are silver, the grass is blue, and the sky—
There's no sky. Just swirling colors like an aurora that goes on forever.
"Where are we?" I breathe.
"The In-Between," a new voice says.
A man steps out from behind a tree. He looks like Lucian but different—brighter somehow, like light lives under his skin. He has the same sharp features, the same silver eyes. But while Lucian feels like darkness, this man feels like dawn.
"Hello, brother," Lucian says quietly.
Raphael—because it has to be him—looks at Lucian with an expression I can't read. Love and sadness mixed together.
Then his eyes find me, and they widen.
"You bonded with a human?" He sounds shocked. "Lucian, what have you done?"
"What I had to."
"She's going to kill you." Raphael steps closer, studying me like I'm a puzzle. "The bond is draining you. I can see it. You have months left, maybe less."
My heart stops. "What?"
Lucian won't look at me. "It's fine—"
"It's not fine!" Raphael grabs his arm. "You're dying, and you bonded yourself to her anyway? Why?"
"Because she's the key to stopping the Void." Lucian pulls away. "Her power is unique. Unprecedented. She can do things no one else can."
"So you're using her." Raphael's voice is cold. "You're using her as a weapon, knowing it will kill you both."
"That's not—" Lucian starts.
But I'm not listening anymore.
The bond is killing him. Killing us.
He knew. From the very beginning, he knew.
"You lied to me," I whisper.
Lucian finally meets my eyes. "I didn't—"
"You said the contract would protect me. You said I'd be safe." My voice rises. "You never said it would kill us!"
"I was going to tell you—"
"When? When we were both dying?" Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. "You used me. Just like Marcus used me. Just like everyone uses me!"
"Cassandra, please—"
"No." I back away from him. "Don't touch me. Don't talk to me. Don't—"
The ground shakes.
All three of us freeze.
"That's not possible," Raphael breathes. "Nothing can breach the In-Between. Nothing except—"
Red light explodes through the forest.
Trees catch fire. The glowing grass turns black. The sky cracks like glass.
Malachi's voice booms from everywhere: "Did you really think you could hide from me, Morningstar? I am eternal. I am everywhere. And I always find what belongs to me."
Shadows pour through the cracks in the sky—hundreds of Void spawn, bigger and stronger than any I've seen before.
"He followed us," Kieran says, shocked. "How?"
Lucian's face goes pale. "The bond. He tracked us through the bond."
"Which means nowhere is safe," Raphael says grimly. He draws a sword made of pure light. "Get behind me."
But I'm done hiding.
I'm done being protected.
I'm done being used.
Power explodes from my hands—light and darkness mixed, just like before. But this time, I'm not pulling from Lucian.
I'm pulling from somewhere deeper. Somewhere inside me that I didn't know existed.
My bloodline. My heritage. My father's power awakening fully.
The forest lights up like the sun.
"Cassandra, stop!" Lucian shouts. "You'll burn yourself out!"
"Let her," Malachi's voice purrs. "Let her use all that beautiful power. Let her empty herself. Then I'll fill her with something better."
The Void spawn rush toward me.
I throw everything I have at them.
Light incinerates them by the dozens. But more keep coming. Always more.
My vision starts to blur. My knees buckle.
Too much power. Too fast.
I'm going to pass out. Going to die.
Going to—
Arms catch me. Lucian, holding me up.
"Together," he says in my ear. "We're stronger together."
I hate him. I hate that he lied.
But he's right.
I let him channel power through me. His darkness and my light, perfectly balanced.
The combined blast levels everything—trees, monsters, even cracks the strange sky above us.
When it clears, the forest is destroyed. But the Void spawn are gone.
Malachi's laughter echoes one more time: "Lovely. Simply lovely. I can't wait to see what you become, little Contractor. We'll meet again very soon."
Then silence.
I collapse completely. Lucian lowers me to the ground, and Raphael kneels beside us.
"She needs rest," the archangel says. "And you need answers about that bond before it kills you both."
"I know," Lucian says quietly.
I look up at him through fading vision. "You're dying because of me."
"We're both dying because of the bond. But Cassandra—" He touches my face gently. "I'd make the same choice again."
"Why?"
"Because some things are worth dying for."
Everything goes dark, and the last thing I hear is Raphael saying:
"Then we'd better find a way to save you both. Before Malachi does something worse than kill you." The power keeps pouring out of me like water from a broken dam.
Footsteps pound in the hallway. Lucian bursts through the door, Kieran right behind him.
Lucian sees the light and swears. "She's manifesting already. It's too soon—she's not ready!"
"What do we do?" Kieran asks.
"We contain it before she burns the whole building down." Lucian approaches me carefully, hands up. "Cassandra, listen to me. You need to pull it back. The power is yours—you control it."
"I can't!" The light is getting brighter, stronger. Things in the room start to float. "I don't know how!"
"Yes, you do." He's right in front of me now, close enough to touch. "Feel the power. Don't fight it. Don't fear it. Just... breathe."
"That's your advice? Breathe?"
"Trust me."
I don't trust him. But I don't have a choice.
I close my eyes and try to feel the power instead of fearing it. It's like a river inside me, wild and rushing and desperate to get out.
Slowly, carefully, I imagine pulling it back. Like closing a faucet. Like taking a deep breath and holding it.
The light dims. The floating objects settle. The cold recedes.
When I open my eyes, the room is normal again except for the broken window and frost.
Lucian lets out a long breath. "Well. That was exciting."
My legs give out. Kieran catches me before I hit the floor.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I didn't mean to—"
"It's not your fault." Lucian kneels beside me. "Your power is waking up faster than expected. The attack at the hospital accelerated the process." He looks at Kieran. "We need to start her training immediately. Tonight."
"Tonight?" Zara protests. "She needs rest!"
"She needs control," Lucian says sharply. "Before her power tears her apart from the inside."
Kieran helps me to my feet. "Can you walk?"
I nod, though I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
Lucian leads us down to the basement—a massive space filled with training equipment and weapons. The walls are covered in those silver lines I saw before, glowing brighter here.
"Reinforced wards," Lucian explains. "Whatever you do down here won't damage the building." He turns to face me. "First lesson: your power responds to emotion. Fear makes it wild. Anger makes it destructive. You need to learn to stay calm."
"How am I supposed to stay calm when monsters are trying to kill me?"
"Practice." He gestures to the center of the room. "Attack me."
I stare at him. "What?"
"Use your power. Try to hit me."
"I'm not going to—"
"Do it!" His voice cracks like a whip. "Or the next time Void spawn attack, you'll freeze up and die. Is that what you want?"
No. It's not.
I raise my hands, and light flickers across my palms. It feels easier this time, like the power knows what I want.
I throw it at Lucian.
He dodges effortlessly, moving faster than any human could. The light hits the wall behind him and disappears into the wards.
"Again," he commands.
I try again. And again. And again.
He dodges every single shot.
Frustration builds in my chest. I'm tired and scared and angry, and I channel all of it into the next blast.
This one is different. Bigger. Brighter.
It catches Lucian in the chest and sends him flying backward into the wall.
Silence.
"Oh God," I breathe. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
Lucian stands up, brushing dust off his suit. He's smiling.
"There it is," he says. "That's the power I need. The power that can save the world." He walks toward me, and his eyes glow silver. "Now let's see how much more you can do."
The training lasts for hours. By the end, I can barely stand. But I can control the light. I can call it, shape it, throw it without destroying everything around me.
When Lucian finally calls it quits, the sun is rising outside.
"You did well," he says, and it sounds like he means it. "Rest today. Tonight, we train again."
I stumble back to my room with Zara's help. Every muscle screams. My head pounds.
But as I collapse onto the bed, I feel something new.
Not just power. Not just fear.
Pride.
I'm not helpless anymore. I'm not the woman Marcus and Simone destroyed.
I'm becoming something else. So
mething stronger.
Maybe even something dangerous.
I fall asleep with light still flickering across my fingertips and one thought in my mind:
Let the monsters come. Next time, I'll be ready.