The echo of steel on stone shattered the midnight hush.
Cassian woke to the taste of blood.
Riven's body was already moving—naked save for a belt-knife—dragging Cassian with him to the ground just as a crossbow bolt embedded in the headboard with a brutal thunk. Dust sprayed across their tangled sheets. Cassian's heart punched against his ribs, breath torn ragged from sleep and instinct.
Another bolt came, missing by inches. Riven rolled, muscles coiled and dangerous, eyes flashing gold in the dark. A hissed command sent guards storming into the royal bedchamber from the outer hall.
Too late.
Whoever had fired was gone.
"Sweep the eastern corridor," Riven growled, dragging on his trousers with a savage yank. "Check the service halls. And gods help whoever let them slip through."
Cassian sat up slowly, bloodied lip, shaking fingers, a furious heartbeat pounding in his ears. "They got inside. Into here."
Riven didn't answer. His silence was damning.
---
They didn't speak until the corridor was secured.
Cassian stood by the shattered window, the cool breeze licking across bare skin, clutching a silk robe. He hadn't even realized he was bleeding—just a graze on his side from splintered stone—but the sting was secondary to the burn beneath his ribs.
"Someone knew our layout," he said, voice low. "Knew the guard rotations. The structural weaknesses."
Riven rubbed his hand over his mouth, sweat clinging to his collarbone. "They knew where the bed would be."
Cassian turned slowly to face him. "That was meant for me."
Riven's jaw tensed, eyes flicking up. "It doesn't matter who it was for. They fired on the imperial bed. That's an act of war."
Cassian stepped forward. "It matters to me. Do you think I can rule knowing someone just tried to kill me in my own bed?"
There was a long pause.
"I think," Riven said carefully, "that someone within the court made it possible."
Silence.
The kind that gnaws.
---
The Whisper Court had been summoned again by dawn.
They had taken up temporary residence in the south wing, and now, Riven's eyes scanned every noble's face with a soldier's measure. Cassian knew that look—the same look Riven wore before a raid. Or a kill.
He couldn't blame him.
Dorian, the lord of Raven's Reach, tilted his head as if feigning surprise. "A crossbow? In the palace? My emperor, we must have been overrun with rats."
Murmured laughter. Hollow. Cold.
Cassian slammed his hand down on the table. "A rat with access to floor schematics and guard changes? Get out."
No one moved.
Until Riven did.
He didn't raise his voice, didn't need to. "You heard the emperor."
Chairs scraped. Cloaks swished. And as the nobles filed out, Riven's hand slid around Cassian's waist—not for comfort, but reassurance. To check the wound. To remind them both he was still here.
Still breathing.
Still his.
---
They stood in the war room later, alone save for two trusted guards.
"It's not over," Cassian said, gripping the edge of the strategy table.
Riven leaned in, the scent of him grounding. Leather. Steel. Sweat.
"No," he agreed. "It's only begun."
And then—like something snapped—Cassian turned, grabbed Riven's shirt, and kissed him with the fury of a man who had just seen death.
Their mouths clashed, tongues tangling, hands ripping at fabric. The table hit Riven's back with a dull thud as Cassian climbed over him, straddling his hips, pushing him flat.
"I could have died," Cassian growled.
"You didn't," Riven rasped.
"I felt it. How close it was. And all I could think was—I never said it. I never told you."
Riven's breath caught.
Cassian kissed him again, slower this time. Fiercer. "I love you."
Riven's fingers dug into his waist. "Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"Riven, I love you."
The rain struck the palace windows in steady, rhythmic drumming—more haunting than soothing. Cassian stood at the edge of the corridor, his hands braced against the carved stone archway, jaw tense, shirt rumpled from the fight earlier. He hadn't spoken to Riven since the assassination attempt. He hadn't wanted to.
Not because of anger. Because of fear.
He couldn't shake the image of Riven, bloodied and limp for those terrible seconds, or the pain in his own chest that had nearly stolen his breath. The realization had clawed into him like a beast: if Riven died, Cassian would shatter.
Footsteps echoed from behind. Soft, but unafraid.
"You should be resting," Riven said, voice low.
Cassian didn't move. "I tried. I see blood every time I close my eyes."
A beat. Riven stepped closer. "Mine?"
Cassian turned then, sharply. "Yes." His voice cracked like a whip. "You shouldn't have shielded me. That blade was meant for me."
"And yet," Riven said softly, "I did. And I'd do it again."
That damn calm. That maddening devotion. Cassian crossed the room in a blink, grabbing Riven by the collar and shoving him against the wall. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just raw.
"Don't you dare," he hissed. "Don't you dare make dying for me seem noble. I need you here. Breathing. Bleeding, if you must, but alive."
Riven didn't flinch. He held Cassian's gaze, fierce and unyielding. "And I need you to understand that I don't fear death. I fear losing you."
The air between them pulsed.
Cassian's hands trembled as he pressed closer, forehead against Riven's. "Then we're both fools."
Riven's arms encircled him. "No," he murmured. "We're warriors. Lovers. Kings of ash, but kings all the same."
Their kiss was not tender. It was stormy, desperate—a clash of teeth, of tongues, of two souls trying to prove they still had something to hold onto. Riven moaned against Cassian's mouth as he was guided into the nearest shadowed alcove, out of view, behind thick stone pillars.
Clothing became an afterthought. Fingers fumbled with buckles, tore fabric, stripped away the layers of civility they wore like armor. Cassian dropped to his knees with reverence and hunger, tasting Riven with his mouth, with his soul, seeking a salvation only they could give each other. Riven's hand tangled in his hair, his breath ragged and uneven.
When Cassian rose again, they both fell together.
There, against the cold stone, heat bloomed. Their bodies aligned perfectly, thrusts meeting with passion and pain. Riven's hands clawed at Cassian's back, leaving marks to match the ones inside his chest. Every cry, every gasp, every whispered name was a vow forged in fire.
They came undone together—not in silence, but in fury, in love, in something more ancient than words.
In the silence that followed, Cassian rested his head on Riven's shoulder, both of them slick with sweat and tremors.
"Someone inside the court planned it," Riven murmured. "The guards changed too late. The blade was Vessian steel. Only nobles use it."
Cassian nodded slowly. "Then we hunt our own."
Riven tilted his head. "Cassian… if it's someone close—"
"Then I slit their throat with my own hand."
They looked out the window then, to the storm that hadn't stopped since the blade fell.
The moon cast a pale glow through the arched windows of the war room, where silence loomed like smoke. Riven stood alone now, long after the council had dispersed. Maps remained scattered on the table, but his thoughts were far from strategy. He stared into the shadows that clung to the corners, as if daring them to move.
Cassian found him there. "You're not sleeping again."
"I will. Eventually." Riven didn't turn. His voice held an edge, but beneath it, weariness trembled.
Cassian crossed to him, wrapping arms around Riven's waist from behind. "You don't have to face this alone."
"There's a traitor, Cass." Riven's jaw clenched. "Someone who walks these halls. Someone who knows our routines—our blind spots."
Cassian pressed his lips against the side of Riven's neck, grounding him. "Then we tighten the walls. Watch every move. Trust only each other."
Riven turned, their eyes locking. "And if it's someone we do trust?"
A beat of silence. Then Cassian kissed him. Not to silence, but to promise. A kiss threaded with unspoken fears, but also with defiance. If the empire turned against them, they'd turn against it harder.
They moved to the hearth chamber—where firelight gilded bare skin in molten gold. Riven let his armor fall with a slow, practiced grace. But there was no performance in the way his hands sought Cassian's face, or how their foreheads pressed together.
Tonight, urgency made way for something deeper. Riven traced the scars along Cassian's spine, reverent. Cassian's hands trembled when they touched Riven's ribs, where an old wound still echoed. They undressed not with haste, but with intention—as if every exposed inch carried meaning.
Cassian laid Riven back onto the furs, their bodies aligned with exquisite slowness. Every motion became deliberate, sensual—his hands worshipping, mouth marking the hollow of Riven's throat, down his chest, until the gasps were sacred, quiet prayers.
Riven arched into him, lips parting around Cassian's name like a confession. "Don't hold back," he rasped. "Not tonight."
Cassian didn't. The rhythm they found was unhurried but intense, all friction and aching closeness. Every thrust was a promise: that even surrounded by knives and doubt, this—they—remained unbroken.
When the climax came, it wasn't explosive. It was overwhelming. Quiet. A shared quake beneath skin. Cassian collapsed beside Riven, chest to chest, still inside him, breathing the same air.
After a long moment, Riven whispered, "If they come for me..."
"They'll have to go through me first." Cassian's fingers tightened around his. "And I'll burn the whole court to the ground if they do."
Riven smiled, but it was tight, pained. "You'd be a terrible politician."
Cassian kissed his forehead. "That's why I have you."
Dawn bled softly through the high windows, casting the empire's crown tower in dull amber. The warmth of the previous night lingered faintly on Riven's skin, but in its place bloomed a colder fire—purpose, edged with distrust.
He rose without waking Cassian, cloaking himself in quiet shadows and resolve. If the blade had nearly reached them once, it could again. And next time, it might strike true.
**—
Down in the archive wing**, where whispers clung to stone and dust more stubbornly than any secret, Riven stood before the sealed records. These weren't just documents. They were bloodlines. Allegiances. Ruins dressed as lineage.
He called forth one name: House Virel.
It was supposed to have died decades ago in a purge for treason. But the assassin had whispered something strange before biting down on the poison in her cheek—"For the Virel heir."
As the scroll unsealed, Riven's eyes moved quickly. Land grants. Ciphers. Names changed under imperial protection. Hidden debts. And at the center: Lady Neria Virel, vanished without a body… yet married under a new name two years later to a rising courtier.
One still serving on Cassian's advisory ring.
**—
By late afternoon**, the grand hall shimmered with courtly grace. Silks and poison smiles. Cassian stood beside the throne in full imperial black, his eyes scanning the gathering with a predator's calm. Riven entered from the side corridor, dressed not as a prince—but as a blade.
He walked straight to Lord Sethel Carin, who bowed too low.
"I hear your estate flourished," Riven said coolly. "Despite poor harvests. Odd."
"Reserves, my prince."
"And gold from nowhere," Riven murmured. "Perhaps from a ghost."
The man froze. Behind him, a guard's hand hovered over their blade.
Riven's voice turned lethal. "Tell me. When did your wife stop going by Neria Virel?"
Cassian stepped down from the dais. Gasps rose around the chamber like a tide. The temperature dropped a degree.
Sethel's lips parted—but no sound escaped.
Cassian's voice echoed: "Guards. Seize him."
**—
That night**, after the silence and the screams faded, Riven stood at the terrace with Cassian.
"You were right," Cassian said. "It was someone close."
"And they'll try again."
Cassian turned to him, hands sliding around his waist. "Then we don't sleep alone again."
Riven leaned into the touch, sighing against Cassian's collarbone. "We'll never be safe, Cass."
"No. But we'll be dangerous together."
They stood there long into the night, bathed in moonlight and the scent of rain on old stone, two hearts forged in fire—haunted, hunted, and holding on.