The papers trembled in my hands. I didn’t want to read them again, but the words blurred across the page no matter how hard I tried to blink them away.

Orders. Signed in Seraphine Caereth’s seal. Alec’s mother’s seal.

My stomach twisted. I threw them down on the table between us. “How long were you going to keep this from me?”

Alec’s face hardened, his usual careless grin nowhere to be found. “It’s not what you think.”

I stepped closer, rage sparking in my veins. “Not what I think? These are orders. Orders to track me. To use me. And you’ve been carrying them this whole time.”

He didn’t flinch. “I wasn’t following them.”

“Then why keep them at all? Why not burn them the second you chose to play the hero? Or was it easier to keep me close—make me trust you—while you waited for the right moment to drag me back to your mother?”

Something in him snapped. He slammed his hand down on the table, flame flaring up around his fingers. “Do you think this is easy for me?” His voice shook, raw with fury. “Every step of this journey, I’ve had orders, rules, duty carved into my skin like chains.” His chest heaved, his eyes blazing with more than fire. “I had every reason to walk away, every reason to hand you over. But I didn’t. I broke those rules for you!”

The room rang with the echo of his words.

I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat refused to budge. His firelight flickered across the walls, painting everything in gold and shadow, but it was his eyes that rooted me to the floor.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to hate him for making me feel both at once.