“Ah.” Farrow’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “The infamous Shade. The Heart’s newest acquisition happens to be your—what should I call her? Lover? Partner? Weakness?”
“Don’t.” The warning in his voice was clear.
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “I’m simply pointing out that personal vendettas make poor foundations for revolution.”
“This isn’t personal.” A half-truth.
“Everything’s personal when you’re watching your people die.” She leaned back, studying him. “But perhaps that’s what we need. Someone stupid and brave enough to actually pull the trigger.” A pause. “Everyone knows what she did. It’s not spoken of openly, but everyone is singing. Everyone is whispering.”
“I know,” Jameson sighed.
“What’s your plan for her?” Farrow asked, rolling her neck.
A muscle in Jameson’s jaw twitched. “We are going in tonight. Jaeger, myself, plus a small Daggermouth unit.”
“That’s fucking suicide, Jay.” She couldn’t hide the shock from her face. “You’ll die before you make it to the first checkpoint out of the Cardinal.”
“I’m done arguing this with everyone,” Jameson snapped. “It’s happening. I won’t let her rot away in the Heart.”
“Touching.” Her tone was dry, but something in her expression softened fractionally. “I’ll consider your alliance proposal. If you survive tonight’s stupidity, we’ll talk terms.”
She stood, moving toward the door. “I’ll try to get additional shipments to the Boundary in the meantime. Food, medical supplies, water. But I can’t promise anything.”
Jameson rose, checking his watch. six hours until the extraction. Until he either had Shadera back or died trying.
“Kes.” She paused at his voice. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If you die tonight, I’ll have to work with Rook, and neither of us wants that.” She pulled the door open as Jameson smiled at the comment. The two of them had never seemed to get along, even when they were running the streets together decades ago. “Be careful. The Heart is changing. Becoming more unpredictable.”
“Dying beasts often are,” he replied, then slipped past her out of the room.
TherooftopgardensofSerel Tower existed in defiance of the ugliness they grew above. Greyson sat on a bench between their perfectly maintained rows, watching the surveillance drones above circle in predictable patterns. He counted them out of habit—seventeen visible from this vantage point, another thirty hidden between buildings.
His eyes fell to his boots where blood was still splattered from the morning’s duties. He flexed his hands, feeling the phantom weight of his gun, hearing the echo of his voice pronouncing the sentences. Three more families shattered. Three more reasons the rings would celebrate his death. His uniform chafed against his injured shoulder, the fabric stiff and unforgiving. He should have changed, but after the platform, after watching the light leave those men’s eyes—he needed air. Needed distance from his world.
This was the farthest he could get.
Greyson closed his eyes, trying to push away the image of the young man barely out of his teens, executed for “association with dissident elements.” No evidence presented. No defense permitted. Just another body falling to the platform floor as he pulled the trigger.
Slowly he pushed his eyes back open, focusing on the gardens instead of his thoughts. Like him, they existed in an artificial environment, sustained by resources stolen from others.
He hadn’t spoken to Shadera since she’d cleaned his wound, since her fingers had traced the Executioner’s mark on his back, since she’d seen the evidence of his father’s lessons mapped across his skin. The memory of her touch lingered, unwanted but persistent. The gentleness in those hands that had tried to kill him.
‘You deserve a better father.’
The words burrowed beneath his skin, finding purchase in places he’d thought long dead. She’d spoken then with such conviction, as if she could see some version of him that didn’t exist. He’d spent the night in his study alone, confronting what that moment had revealed to him. His weakness, his desperate hunger for someone to see him as something other than the Executioner.
A drone flew closer than usual, its camera focusing on him for a moment before continuing its patrol. A reminder that privacy was an illusion, even for a Serel.
Especiallyfor a Serel.
The moon had fully risen when Greyson finally pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t avoid her forever. There were things that needed to be said. Truths that would shatter whatever fragile understanding had formed between them. The thought of it—of watching her face when she learned what the Vow ceremony truly entailed—made something in his chest constrict.
He dragged a hand through his hair, taking in one last deep breath of the garden air before he forced himself toward the elevator. If he were lucky, she’d put him out of his misery the moment she found out what came next.
The descent from the rooftop to his apartment took exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds. He counted each one in an effort to calm the nerves flaring through his system. Count the seconds, focus on the numbers, push everything else away. By the time he reached his apartment, a familiar dread had settled into his bones.
The lock clicked open, and he stepped inside to find the apartment silent. He lifted his mask from his face, setting it on the table quietly as he listened for any sign of her. A soft metallic scraping sound reached his ears from the hallway.
