Chapter 13 Cassian
CASSIAN
The air’s too still again. That kind of quiet that presses in behind your ears like pressure before a storm, where everything in the world waits for something to break.
I’m outside splitting firewood, same as every morning since we came deeper into the range, where the ice climbs like jagged teeth and the sky opens wide enough to swallow a man whole.
She’s inside, probably still asleep, curled up under that threadbare quilt with her curls fanned across the pillow, lips parted just enough to breathe soft and steady. I shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. Not after everything we... not when things are still this raw.
I raise the axe and bring it down clean, the log cracking sharp against the frozen ground. My body works on rhythm, muscle and memory, no thought to it. That’s how I like it. The noise gives me something to do. Something to drown out the sound of my own thoughts.
But then I hear it.
The tone from her radio. That synthetic chirp she forgot to mute again. It’s faint through the walls of the cabin, but I know the sound too well by now. It means a message just came through. It means someone on the other end of this frozen world still thinks she might answer.
I don’t go in right away. I tell myself it’s not my business. That she’s earned a little space. But then I hear her voice. Strained. Like someone trying real hard to keep something inside.
I drop the axe.
When I open the door, she’s standing by the small desk we dragged in from the back room. The radio’s on, screen still lit, and she’s got both hands braced against the table like she’s using it to hold herself up. Her back’s to me.
She doesn’t turn when I step inside.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she says, voice low, breath uneven. “Because it’s nothing. It’s not real. And I said no. I swear I said no.”
I say nothing. Not yet.
She turns slowly, eyes wide and full of something that looks too much like guilt.
“I think he knew I’d check the radio this morning,” she says, voice quickening now. “Gordon. He must’ve had it queued. It was waiting. Like he knew I’d hear it.”
I step closer. My boots grind ice into the floor. She doesn’t flinch, but she starts talking faster.
“He offered me money,” she says. “A lot. More than I’ve ever made. More than I’d make in a decade of documentaries. He said if I brought you in—alive, unhurt—he could guarantee my career. Called it the story of the century. Proof of myth. Tangible, sellable, packaged truth.”
She swallows hard.
“I didn’t answer. I turned it off. I didn’t even let the message finish playing. I didn’t even think about it.”
My hands curl into fists without me meaning them to. The silence between us is thick enough to choke on.
She takes a step toward me, her voice softening. “Cassian, I would never—”
“Don’t,” I say, too sharp. The word hangs in the air like a blade.
Her mouth shuts tight.
I feel it then. That old familiar burn rising in my chest. Like ice and fire tangled together. The kind of pain that doesn’t scream. It whispers. Reminds. Shows you every scar and name and face that ever turned their back when it mattered most.
I turn away from her and pace slow to the far wall, where the frost’s creeping back up the planks.
I brace both hands against the wood and lower my head, breathing slow, trying to steady the noise in my skull.
But it doesn’t stop. It’s her voice playing over and over.
Gordon’s name. The offer. The numbers. The betrayal that’s not hers and still feels like it is.
She’s behind me again. I don’t hear her steps, but I feel her.
“I said no,” she says again, quieter this time. “You don’t believe me.”
I grit my teeth. I want to. I want to believe her so bad it feels like my ribs are splintering under the pressure.
But trust isn’t something I can just pull out of the ice and hand over like it costs nothing. It’s something I buried a long time ago, in graves marked by people who said the right things and still walked away.
“I’ve heard those promises before,” I say, voice low and cold.
“I’m not them.”
“No,” I agree. “But they weren’t monsters either.”
She flinches like I slapped her, and I hate that. I hate the look in her eyes now, like I’m turning into the very thing I promised I wasn’t. But I can’t take it back. I won’t. The second I start pretending this doesn’t matter, I stop surviving.
“You think I came out here for an award?” she says, voice rising. “You think I stayed through gunfire and ice storms and watching you bleed just so I could cash out when the signal came through?”
I don’t answer.
She steps closer. Her hands shake now, clenched at her sides like she’s holding something back that’s about to explode.
“Say something,” she says. “Tell me I’m a liar. Tell me I planned it. Say whatever you need to say to push me away, but don’t stand there and act like this is the first time someone’s seen you for who you are and didn’t run.”
My head snaps around.
She’s not crying, but her eyes are bright, jaw trembling.
“I’ve seen you,” she says. “The real you. Not the thing you think you are. Not the rage. Not the legend. You. The man who makes sure the fire’s burning before I wake up.
The one who takes the sled farther out so the dogs don’t eat too fast and get sick.
The one who didn’t leave me, even when I gave you every reason to. ”
I don’t move. Don’t breathe.
She reaches out and presses her palm to my chest, right over the place where the bullet hit days ago.
“Your scars don’t scare me,” she says. “Your silence doesn’t scare me. But you shutting down like I don’t matter? That does.”
The pain in her voice slices deeper than any blade.
I don’t know what to do with it.
She starts to pull back, her hand slipping away, but I catch it. Not hard. Just enough to stop her. To keep her there for another second.
Her fingers are still in mine.
My voice is rough when I finally speak. “It’s not about the offer.”
She looks up at me, searching.
“It’s what it reminds me of,” I say. “What people are willing to do for the right price. How many times I’ve been sold without a word. How many hands I’ve held that let go when it got too heavy.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. “I’m still here.”
“For now,” I say, and the words taste like ash.
She shakes her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe that. I do. But belief has teeth. And mine are still healing.
I let her go and turn back to the fire, the only thing left burning between us tonight. My voice comes quiet, but it doesn’t shake.
“We leave in the morning. We go north, find the caverns at Rensvik Pass. There’s shelter there. And less chance of your boss getting another signal through.”
I hear her exhale, slow and steady, like she expected worse.
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t press. Just gathers her coat and steps toward the back room.
At the doorway, she pauses.
“You can keep trying to push me out,” she says without turning. “But eventually, you’ll have to look at me and see the truth. I’m not your past. I’m not your mistake. I’m the only one who didn’t walk away.”
She disappears into the dark, and I’m left staring into the fire, wondering how long it’ll take before I stop trying to burn down everything good that reaches for me.