Your heart pounds in your throat, your breath caught, shallow and tight. Chaos erupts below—blood, gore, death, and anguished cries—but it all fades to a dull hum in the background. Your focus is locked on him.

Cassian tears through the enemy’s front lines, and they close in around him, swallowing him whole. He’s utterly surrounded, but he doesn’t falter. He charges forward, relentless, beheading a Hybern general with a single swing. Rhysand’s command echoes across the battlefield, urging him to hold back—but Cassian doesn’t hear it. Or maybe he does, but it’s too late. He’s already gone, lost in the blood-soaked frenzy.

He's unafraid. Unstoppable. Determined. Throwing himself into the centre of the enemy lines, fighting relentlessly for those he loves, willing to do anything.

Anything. You realise the weight of his loyalty with a choked whimper.

It happens all too quick, but you can't tear your gaze away. He takes a mass down before him, but then a sword is slashing right across his abdomen with a gush of blood. Not enemy blood- his blood. A scream tears from your throat. He stumbles. Blue syphons blaze, a blur of blonde hair coming to support him, tearing through the enemies to get to him, black mist coiling, striking, disintegrating. And you're already running. Heart pounding as you see Cassian's limp form being dragged into a tent, his insides threatening to spill from his abdomen, Azriel's scarred hands desperately holding them in.