He pulled the trigger and the officer crumpled to the ground as he broke into a run and passed over the barrier.
The twin towers in the center of the plaza rose into the sky. He was so close now. Just two more blocks. Just two more blocks and he would reach her.
Shouts erupted behind him—reinforcements arriving, alerted by the gunshots. He didn’t look back, couldn’t afford to waste the seconds. His lungs burned, muscles screaming as he pushed himself harder, faster.
He had to get to her. He would do anything toget to her.
Maximus’smaskcaughtthesun as he turned toward Lira, each movement controlled, deliberate, a predator calculating the kill. Shadera recognized that stillness. Had embodied it herself before taking a life. And though her body screamed with pain from a hundred injuries, though her broken ribs threatened to pierce her lungs with each breath, she moved.
Her hand found the slit in her dress, fingers wrapping around the gun strapped to the top of her thigh. The metal was warm from her body heat, familiar and comforting in her grip as she slid it free. Every movement sent fresh fire racing through her torso, but she kept her face blank, refusing to reveal pain.
Three steps brought her between Maximus and Lira. Her arm extended, the barrel of her gun aimed directly at the golden mask. Steady. Perfect. Even broken, she was the best the Daggermouths had.
“Not another step,” she said, her voice carrying across the suddenly silent platform. The medicine dulled her pain, but sharpened her focus, narrowing her world to this moment, this confrontation.
Maximus’s eyes locked on her.
His head tilted slightly, as if amused by her defiance.
“You would threaten me?” His voice carried the confidence of a man who had never faced consequences. “In my Heart? Surrounded by Veyra?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No fear. Only certainty.
Greyson appeared at her side, his own gun drawn, aimed at his father’s head. The tension in his body matched her own—coiled, readyto spring. She didn’t need to look at him to feel his presence, to know they were perfectly aligned in this moment.
“It’s over, Father,” Greyson said. “Your Heart is broken.”
Movement flickered at the edge of Shadera’s vision.
A Veyra officer shifting his weight, hand dropping to his weapon. She tracked him without moving her gun from Maximus, calculating angles, timing, priorities.
One bullet for Maximus, then pivot to the officer, but that would leave Greyson exposed to—
The shot cracked through the air before she could move.
The Veyra officer dropped a neat hole through his faceplate, body crumpling then rolling off the platform’s polished surface. Shadera’s gaze snapped to the source as horrified gasps rippled through their audience.
Captain Mikel stepped forward from his line of men at the back of the platform, his weapon shifting targets to Maximus’s head.
“Traitor,” he hissed at Mikel, the word dripping with venom.
Shadera’s fingers tightened on her gun, the weight of it reassuring despite the tremor spreading through her muscles. Three guns now pointed at Maximus.
The air between them seemed to crystallize, tension drawing it taut, ready to shatter at the slightest movement. Shadera’s heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a fresh burst of pain. She could feel blood seeping through the open wounds beneath her dress, warm and sticky against her skin.
Maximus tilted his head, then he laughed. The sound was hollow, echoing strangely behind his mask, a sound devoid of mirth or humanity.
“Do you think you’ve won?” he asked, his voice almost conversational now. “Do you think this is it? The great revolution? The downfall of the Heart?”
He took astep forward, seemingly unconcerned by the weapons trained on him. Shadera's finger twitched on the trigger, but she held her fire. Something in his confidence made her hesitate.
Maximus turned toward Lira, his eyes fixing on her bare face. “I must admit, daughter, I’m impressed. This—” He gestured toward the scattered masks on the platform, the unmasked women below. “—this I didn’t anticipate. The only move you have made that I did not see coming.”
His words sent a chill through Shadera’s spine.
What other moves?
“In fact,” Maximus continued, his voice swelling with perverse pride, “I’m proud of you. The only one who managed to do something under my nose.”
