The obsidian face lifted away, revealing features carved from shadow and light—high cheekbones, a strong jaw, eyes the color of winter sky. Blood trickled from full split lips, but his gaze was clear, almost peaceful.
Shadera froze, gun still pointed between those impossibly blue eyes. The most sacred law of the Heart—broken before her. To see his face was a death sentence.
The doors burst open.
Veyra poured into the room, weapons drawn. Shadera heard the click of a hundred safeties disengaging, as a hundred red targeting dots scattered across her body like a deadly constellation.
The Serel and Daunt families followed closely behind the Veyra. They froze in collective horror at the tableau before them—Greyson Serel unmasked, facing a Boundary assassin with a gun to his head.
She was going to die here. But so was he.
Their eyes locked, assassin and heir, caught in a moment of perfect, terrible understanding.
Chapter eight
The Fallout
GreysonstaredbackatShadera as he let his mask slip from his fingers and clatter to the floor. The sound of metal striking marble echoed through the room like a final heartbeat.
For a moment, everything froze—the Veyra with fingers on triggers, Moraine Daunt with a hand clasped over her masked mouth, even the air itself seemed to crystallize around them.
Greyson didn’t turn to his father.
His eyes remained locked with Shadera’s, a strange calm settling over him like snowfall. This was it.
The end.
No more executions. No more pretending.
No more loyalty to a system that had consumed his soul.
The bullet in his gut was liberation.
“Greyson!” Elara’s scream sliced through the silence as she pushed past the Veyra and rushed to him. The cry was muted to him, muffled like a distant wail somewhere in the city. His head began to buzz, limbs tingling with loss of sensation.
Elara fell to her knees at Greyson’s side, and he let himself collapse into her chest as her hands pressed against his wounds.
The Veyra began to move, weapons trained on Shadera’s head as the President’s voice cracked through the room like a whip.
“Hold!”
His father’s command froze the guards mid-step. Maximus pushed through their ranks, golden mask fracturing the light as he advanced toward his son.
“What have you done?” Maximus’s words were half snarl, half gasp as he looked from Greyson to Shadera.
Greyson wasn’t sure if he was referring to the mask he’d removed or the bullet she’d put in his abdomen. Knowing the President, he cared more about the mask.
His father began barking orders at the Veyra.
“Get the Daunt family out and get my son to the hospital!” He turned to Shadera, lips curling into a sneer. “And put this Daggermouth filth in the hole.”
The Veyra officers moved in formation, surrounding Shadera with weapons raised, the red dots growing larger as Greyson watched.
Still, she kept her gun trained on him with no fear in her green eyes. They were bottomless, unrepentant.
Greyson wished she hadn’t hesitated.
A Veyra officer tackled Shadera from behind, sending her weapon sliding across the floor. She fought like a cornered animal, with a ferociousness Greyson had never witnessed in anyone.
