CASSIAN

The grass was the first thing I felt, thick, cool, and smelling of a recent rain that had left the earth damp and heavy.

It was a familiar scent, the scent of the Wolfe estate in mid-summer, stretching out in every direction like a manicured kingdom that I was allowed to inhabit but never truly own.

I lay there for a long time, my eyes closed, feeling the specific, startling lightness of a body that hadn’t yet been broken. My limbs felt long and lithe, unburdened by the scars and the stiffness that I somehow felt I should have.

I was waking up, but the process was slow, like hauling myself out of a deep, dark well.

There was a residue clinging to my skin, the greasy remains of a dream so vivid it felt more like a life I had lived than a trick of the mind.

In that other place, there had been blood. So much blood.

There had been a coldness that settled in my chest, a hunger for revenge that tasted like copper, and a name that hummed in the back of my throat like a prayer: Noah.

I tried to hold onto the fragments, the image of a man with blonde hair and eyes the color of a forest after a storm, but they dissolved as soon as the afternoon light hit my eyelids.

The waking world was asserting itself, flat and demanding. I was Cassian Wolfe, I was seventeen years old, and I was currently hiding from a life that felt like a cage.

The footsteps across the lawn were rhythmic and purposeful. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.

The staff at the estate had a specific way of walking when they were looking for me, a gait that suggested they were already annoyed by the time they found me.

"There you are," a voice said. It was one of the senior housemen, his tone dripping with the barely concealed contempt the servants reserved for the "problem child."

He looked down at me as I finally sat up, his face a mask of weary professionalism. "Your father is requesting your presence in the study. Immediately."

I didn’t answer.

I just stood up, feeling the blades of grass clinging to my trousers. I didn’t brush them off.

I knew it would irritate Seraphina to see me looking unkempt in the main house, and at seventeen, small rebellions were the only currency I had.

I followed the man toward the looming stone shadow of the manor, the weight of the dream still sitting heavy in my stomach, making the manicured gardens look like a stage set that was about to fall over.

The study was a room designed to make you feel small.

It was all dark mahogany, leather-bound books that no one ever read, and the suffocating scent of expensive cigars.

Charles Wolfe sat behind the desk, his expression as unmoving as a mountain.

He had already decided how this conversation would end before I even crossed the threshold.

Preston was there, of course, standing by the window with that smug, self-satisfied smirk that seemed tattooed onto his face.

He lived for the moments when I stumbled. And then there was Seraphina.

She was holding the pieces of a porcelain figurine in her trembling hands.

It was an old piece, something from her family’s estate, fragile and useless and probably worth more than the lives of half the people in this house.

I remembered the night before. I remembered the white-hot flash of rage that had surged through me when she’d made a comment about my mother.

I remembered how my hand had found the shelf, and the sickeningly beautiful sound of the porcelain shattering against the floor.

It had been the best thing I’d heard all week.

"The bastard child," Seraphina began, her voice a sharp, jagged edge. "The stain on this family’s name. You are a common thief of peace, Cassian. A parasite."

She went on, her words chosen for maximum impact, eventually circling back to my mother.

She used her name like a slur, a reminder that I was born of a mistake, that my very face was a grievance she had to endure every day. Preston added his little nods of agreement, enjoying the theater of it all.

Charles remained quiet until the air in the room felt like it was about to catch fire.

When he spoke, it wasn’t loud. It was worse. It was the voice of a man dealing with a faulty piece of equipment that he was tired of repairing. "You are a disappointment, Cassian. Not because you are mine, but because you refuse to be anything else."

I stood through it all, my face a mask of bored indifference. The inside of me was a hollowed-out cavern, cold and still. This wasn’t new. It was the script we had been following since the day I arrived.

"So what now?" I interrupted, my voice flat. "What’s the punishment? Should I go fetch the belt, or are we trying something more creative today?"

The punishment was predictable: three days of confinement in my room with no food. The door was locked from the outside, the click of the bolt sounding like a final judgment.

Two of the estate’s security men had escorted me, their hands heavy on my arms. I had stopped feeling the indignity of their touch a long time ago.

My room was the smallest in the house, a space Seraphina had carefully selected to ensure I never forgot my place.

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and that was when the dream began to seep back in. It didn’t come in a narrative; it came in sensations.

I felt a love so fierce it made my actual heart ache, a specific, chosen love that spanned years I hadn’t lived yet.

I felt a loss so profound it felt like a limb had been torn away, leaving me to bleed out in a world that didn’t stop to notice.

And I saw the eyes again. Noah. Bright colored hair, green eyes, a specific, vibrant green that I could see even when I closed my own.

I didn’t understand why these shadows felt more like memories than the actual memories of my life.

I didn’t know how I could miss someone I had never met, or how I could mourn a man who still existed. It made the walls of my room feel even tighter, the silence even louder.

Knock Knock.

The first sound on the window was soft, almost like a bird hitting the glass. I ignored it.

The second was louder, more persistent, carrying a rhythm I knew by heart.

By the third knock, a strange warmth had started to spread through my chest, a feeling of recognition that arrived before I even turned my head.

I opened the window. Julian was there.