Sylas kept watching Cassarae fight, but his thoughts had already moved beyond the necklace. The cracks spreading through his Pride hadn't come from one mistake anymore. They were beginning to expose a pattern, and the longer he stared at it, the less certain he became that the problem ended with Cassarae.
His grandfather came to mind first. Magnus had spent most of his life choosing restraint where Sylas would have chosen force, bending under the Grimblade family's pressure after marrying the woman he loved and spending years trying to make up for a decision he had never truly regretted.
That compromise had cost him ten years with Cedric and kept him away when his wife died of cancer. By the time Magnus abandoned the Grimblades and returned, the woman he had made all those concessions for was already gone.
