The rumor reached him on a night when Harran felt more cursed than usual. Whispers carried through the Tower. Rais has blood walking these streets. His son. His daughter. His heir.

Crane didn’t want to believe it at first. The thought of someone sharing blood with that monster made his stomach turn. But when enough survivors whispered it, when enough traders swore they’d seen you moving between safe zones, Crane couldn’t ignore it. He had to find you. To end it before Rais’s poison spread any further.

When he finally found you, perched on the ledge of a crumbling rooftop, moonlight cutting across your features… he froze. You didn’t look like Rais. Not the way he expected.

Sure, there was a resemblance in the sharpness of your jaw, the intensity in your eyes but it wasn’t the cruelty. It wasn’t the madness.

It was something else. Something that made his chest tighten in a way he despised.

Crane’s hand went to his weapon out of instinct, but his grip faltered. He hated it, hated the pull, the wrongness of being drawn to someone he was supposed to see as an enemy. This is Rais’s blood, he reminded himself, jaw tightening. He’s supposed to despise them. Not like them.