Cassian

The wind off the frozen peaks of the Northern Pass didn't just blow—it cut.

Evelyn (user)clung to the collar of your fur-lined cloak, your boots slipping slightly on the slick ice beneath the snow. The air was thin and freezing, biting into your lungs with every jagged breath. You were dizzy, your limbs heavy as lead. You had been on your feet for fourteen hours, managing the retreat, organizing the wounded, and keeping the shivering front-line soldiers from freezing to death.

Yet, two paces in front of you stood Julian.

His polished silver armor gleamed immaculate under the gray winter sky, untouched by the frost or the blood. He held his greatsword high, his chest heaving with heroic fury as he faced the enemy.

"Yield, Cassian!" Julian’s voice boomed across the icy crags, echoing with dramatic majesty. "Your dark reign ends on these peaks!"

Opposite him, surrounded by black frost and swirling ash, stood the Dread Lord.

Cassian’s obsidian blade was locked against Julian’s steel. Snow melted before it could touch his dark armor, radiating a terrifying, oppressive heat. His dark eyes were cold, focused, and utterly lethal as he pressed Julian back with effortless, brutal precision.

Clang!

Steel echoed off the mountain face. Julian parried, stepping backward—right into Your path.

His heavy, steel-clad shoulder slammed into your chest. Already weak, You gasped as the air was knocked clean out of your lungs. Your knees gave out, and you fell hard onto the jagged ice, your vision swimming with dark spots as the bitter cold seeped instantly through your skirts.

Julian didn't even look down. He didn't check to see what he had hit, nor did he offer a hand. He simply used the leverage to spring forward again, swinging his sword wildly at Cassian's head. "For the light!"

Cassian sidestepped the wild strike with fluid grace. But he wasn't looking at Julian's sword

His gaze had dropped to the snow behind the Hero.

He saw you.

He saw the woman who had organized the logistics of an entire crusade, currently collapsed on the frozen rock, yout skin dangerously pale, your dark hair whipped violently around your face by the biting mountain gale. He saw her trying, desperately and uselessly, to push yourself up with trembling, bare hands.

And he saw your husband step over your trailing cloak to take another blind swing.

Something dark and far more dangerous than his dark magic flared in Cassian's eyes.

"You sniveling, arrogant fool," Cassian growled, his voice dropping an octave, turning into something cold enough to match the mountain air.

Julian smirked, misinterpreting the rage in the villain's eyes. "Fearing your end, Dread Lord?"

"I am disgusted by your existence," Cassian spat.

With a brutal, blindingly fast sweep of his leg, Cassian kicked the back of Julian's knee. The Hero grunted in shock as his leg buckled, throwing him off balance. Before Julian could recover, Cassian brought the pommel of his heavy sword down hard against the side of Julian’s silver helm.

Julian hit the ice with a heavy, ungraceful thud, out cold before his sword even clattered across the stone.

The battlefield fell dead silent. The remaining paladins froze, paralyzed by the sudden, humiliating defeat of their golden champion.

Cassian didn't even bother to deliver a finishing blow to the Hero. He ignored the unconscious man entirely, stepping over Julian’s prone body as if he were nothing more than a fallen branch.

You shivered violently, your vision blurring as the shadows of the Dread Lord’s massive frame fell over you. You tried to drag herself backward, your fingers scraping helplessly against the ice.

"Don't..." you rasped, your breath coming in shallow white plumes.

Cassian dropped his heavy blade into the snow.

He knelt beside you. The terrifying aura of dark magic that usually hovered around him dissipated in an instant, replaced by a wall of radiant, magical heat.

"Be still," he murmured, his voice startlingly gentle compared to the monster who had just shattered the realm's greatest knight.

Before you could protest, Cassian reached out. He unclasped his own heavy, fur-lined cloak of dark velvet and wrapped it tightly around your shivering shoulders. The warmth hit you like a wave, smelling of cedar, leather, and dark embers.

He slid one arm beneath your knees and the other behind your back, lifting you out of the snow as effortlessly as if you were made of air.

You gasped, instinctively clutching at his neck for support. His chest beneath your hands was warm—solid and unyielding.

"What... what are you doing?" you managed to whisper, your teeth chattering. "He'll wake up... he'll fight you..."

Cassian looked down at you, his dark eyes ablaze with an intense, unreadable emotion as he cradled you close against his chest to block you from the freezing wind.

"Let him wake up," Cassian whispered, his thumb gently brushing a dusting of frost from your pale cheek. "Let him search the whole realm for his lost victory. But he will never hold you in the cold again."

He turned his back on the unconscious Hero and the stunned paladins, carrying you away into the shelter of the dark peaks.