The estate lay quiet in sleep.
Except for them.
Mariluna stood alone in the center of the sparring hall, the moonlight streaming through the high glass ceiling and casting silver shadows across the room. Her hair clung damp to her skin, her chest rose and fell with effort, and her hands, her hands were glowing.
Faint threads of light curled from her fingertips, delicate and dangerous, like silk unraveling into flame.
Lorenzo stood just off the mat, arms crossed. Watching. "Again."
She clenched her teeth, summoning that strange heat once more. It wasn't magic in any traditional sense. It was older. Wilder. Unbound by rules.
But it came to her now, because of the ring.
The Blood Veil throbbed on her finger, steady as a second heartbeat.
She thrust her arm forward.
A column of searing light shot from her hand, slamming into the metal dummy across the room and scorching its chest with a violent blast.
Still not enough.
"Again," Lorenzo said.
"I can't!" she snapped, turning toward him, sweat shimmering on her brow.
He walked toward her slowly, but his presence filled the room.
When he stopped in front of her, his eyes were colder than the steel beneath their feet.
"Do you think the court will go easy on you?"
"I'm not going to the court," she threw back.
"You will. They already know you exist. Do you really believe they'll let you vanish now? You lit a signal fire, Mariluna. They're coming."
She flinched. He'd said her name.
Not Celestina.
Mariluna.
The girl who used to cry in the dark when no one was watching.
The girl who bled. Who burned.
But she wasn't that girl anymore.
She shoved him hard.
Lorenzo barely moved, but a flicker of tension crossed his jaw.
"You don't get to command me like I'm some beast you've chained up."
"No," he said, voice low and steady. "You're something far more dangerous."
He reached out, brushing his hand through the heated air surrounding hers.
And then, for the first time, he stepped into the fire. Willingly. Fearlessly.
"Burn me," he said.
She stared at him. "Why?"
"Because if you can't hurt me, you can't protect yourself."
Her breath came quick and shallow.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she placed her hand on his chest.
The light surged, flared, then died in her palm.
"I don't want to hurt you," she whispered.
His eyes darkened.
"You already have."
Later that night
Cassandra was awake.
The sedatives had begun to fade, and she lay in the infirmary bed, staring at the ceiling with a bruised, pale face.
She didn't cry. Cassandra Valez didn't cry.
But she remembered.
The cold room. The man who held her face in his hand. Veritas, whispering in her ear that she was nothing but a shadow inside Mariluna's flame.
And those eyes, her cousin's eyes.
The power in them.
Something had shifted.
And Cassandra understood: Mariluna would never be her pawn again.
She turned toward the wall, her voice low, almost lost in the dark.
"I'll destroy her."
Elsewhere, in the wine cellar
David stood in front of Veritas's cage, thick steel bars separating them.
"You're lucky he didn't gut you."
Veritas grinned, bruises stretching across his face. "And yet… here I am."
David pressed the butt of his pistol to the bars. "You're gambling with your life. She may not kill you. But I will."
"She will," Veritas murmured, eyes glinting. "When she finds out who really planted the bomb in that car… and why."
David's blood turned to ice.
"What are you talking about?"
Veritas leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.
"She thinks her uncle did it. But it wasn't him."
"Then who?"
That grin again. Widening.
"Ask Lorenzo."
Back in the master suite
Lorenzo stood at the liquor cabinet, pouring a drink. The firelight caught the glass and scattered it in sharp, golden edges. His shirt hung open at the collar, exposing tense shoulders beneath.
Behind him, Mariluna entered.
"Why are you keeping secrets from me?"
He didn't turn around.
She moved closer, took the glass from his hand, and raised it to her lips.
After a sip, she whispered, "Did you kill my parents?"
He froze.
The silence between them shattered like brittle glass.
"No," he said at last, voice soft. "But I didn't stop it."
The words struck harder than a blow.
Mariluna set the glass down with care.
"You knew?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He finally turned to face her.
What she saw in his eyes wasn't coldness. Not anymore.
It was guilt.
Regret.
And love, too late.
"I needed you broken," he said.
Her breath caught.
"I needed you to belong to me."
She stepped away, trembling.
"You manipulated me."
"I did."
"You watched me mourn."
"I mourned with you."
"You don't own me."
"I want to."
His voice cracked, raw, almost ragged. And somehow, that frightened her more than his ruthlessness ever had.
"I don't need your fire to consume me," she said, turning toward the door.
But before she could reach it, his hand caught her wrist.
When she turned back, he was there, close. Too close.
And the words that left his mouth broke through every defense she had built:
"I'm not trying to own you, Mariluna. I'm trying to save you."