Page 48 of The Panther's Price

“Evryn—”

She turned, shadows already curling at her heels.

“Don’t follow me.”

And before he could try again, before the apology he hadn’t yet found could leave his lips, she vanished into the trees.

Gone like the first time they met. Gone like a blade he hadn’t seen coming.

And Lucien stood alone in the garden that bloomed for her.

TWENTY-ONE

LUCIEN

Lucien didn’t chase her.

Not at first.

He told himself it was for the best.

She needed space. Time. The truth had gutted her—cut clean through whatever fragile, fierce thing they’d started to build between them. And maybe he deserved that.

No, hediddeserve it.

He’d lied. Not just once. Not in passing. Repeatedly.

He’d let her believe she was safe with him, while still playing both sides of a throne that wanted her bleeding. And even if his reasons had changed, the deception remained.

So when her silhouette vanished through the moonlit ferns, when her shadow slipped into the dark without a backward glance, Lucien didn’t follow.

He stood there. Cold. Still. Convincing himself it was mercy.

But then the sun started to rise, casting long, dappled streaks through the half-bloomed canopy. Birds began their low, lilting song. The garden awakened in all its cursed beauty though something in Lucien had withered.

He still hadn’t moved. Not until his shadows, usually coiled and silent, stirred restlessly around his boots. They were uneasy.Like theyknewsomething had shifted. Like they could sense what he hadn’t yet let himself believe.

“Damn it,” Lucien whispered, already moving.

He didn’t call for her. Didn’t shout.

She was too smart for that, she wouldn’t answer.

But shehadleft a thread behind. Not deliberately, not visibly. But her shadow signature still lingered in the air like smoke after lightning. And Lucien knew how to follow what others couldn’t even see.

The trail cut through the far side of the garden. Through another veil-door. And straight intoThalia’s territory.

His blood turned to ice.

He found them at the edge of the Hollowmark crossroads, near an old stone arch long forgotten by most of the Veil-born.

Evryn stood with her back to him.

She was speaking to Thalia, something quiet, something unsure. Her shoulders were tense, her arms crossed. The wind blew her hair across her face, and even from the distance, Lucien could see she’d been crying.

She didn’t see him.

ButThaliadid.

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