Rage bloomed hot in Shadera’s chest as she watched a young man—barely eighteen by the look of him—try to distribute the thin gruel they’d been given. His hands shook with the effort of holding the metal cup, but he made sure everyone got a spoonful before taking any for himself. Crime number 31: theft of food. He’d probably stolen bread for his family.
The fury built behind her shattered ribs like steam in a sealed pipe. These weren’t criminals. They were people who’d dared to be human in a city that demanded they be livestock.
“What’s your story?”
The voice startled Shadera from her thoughts. The woman with the swollen eye was looking at her, curiosity flickering in the one good iris. The others turned their attention to her, waiting for an answer.
Shadera met each of their gazes in turn, seeing the hope they tried to hide. Hope that maybe, just maybe, someone in there might have done something that mattered.
“I tried to kill Greyson Serel,” she stated with no emotion.
A collective gasp rippled through the cell, followed by a stunned silence that seemed to suck all the air from the prison. Then, it started. A murmur began to build—whispers at first, then rising to a fevered pitch as the prisoners processed what Shadera had just said.
“You tried to kill him?” the man with the missing legs leaned forward, eyes wide with a mix of awe and disbelief. “The Executioner himself?”
Shadera nodded once, jaw tight.
The man was yelling before she could stop him, spreading the word throughout the rest of the cells. “She tried to kill the Executioner!”
Voices began to grow throughout the prison in response. Inmates yelling out questions, some cheering, others praying she’d succeeded.
The woman beside Shadera leaned closer, the shift in her position almost desperate. “Is he dead?”
Shadera swallowed hard, the memory of Greyson’s unmasked face flashing behind her eyes. The way he’d looked at her in that final moment, resigned and almost . . .relieved.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I shot him, but was taken before I could watch him die.”
The woman nodded, something like understanding passing over her bruised features. “Even if he lives, you hurt him. You made himbleed.” A small smile flickered over her lips. “That is all that matters. That is fuel to the rebellion.”
“I didn’t do this as an act of rebellion, I didn’t do this for the cause,” Shadera snapped back. She didn’t need them thinking she was some rebel savior. “I’m not a rebel, I’m a Daggermouth, and he was just another name on a contract.”
The last part was a lie, but Shadera wouldn’t tell them that. Wouldn’t tell them that itwaspersonal, that she would’ve tried to kill him one day with or without a contract.
“This will change everything,” the older man said, his shoulders squaring as his chin lifted. “Contract or not, when you pulled that trigger, you told the rings the Serels aren’t untouchable.”
Shouts of agreement rose from the surrounding cells, a ripple of defiance passing through the broken bodies. For a heartbeat, Shadera saw a flicker of the spirit the Heart tried so hard to crush—the unbreakable will of those who had suffered too much to ever fully submit.
Heavy boots thudded down the corridor, accompanied by the crackle of shock batons.
“Quiet!” a Veyra officer snarled, slamming his baton against the bars. Sparks flew, illuminating the mask that suctioned to his face. “Or I’ll come in there and shut you up myself.”
But the prisoners only grew louder, their voices rising in a ragged chorus of rebellion. They pounded their fists against the bars, stomping their feet and screaming profanities at the guards until the very air seemed to tremble with the force of their rage.
Shadera opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her throat as a Veyra officer stopped in front of her cell.
“9758,” the guard barked. “On your feet.”
Shadera didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink, just stared back at him with a defiant tilt to her chin.
“I said, on your feet!”
Still Shadera remained sitting as the chanting from the inmates grew louder. The cell door swung open with a rusty shriek and three guards entered, batons and guns drawn.
The first guard lunged forward, swinging his baton at her head. Shadera ducked, the movement sending knives of pain through her broken ribs. The second guard jammed his shock baton into her side before she could recover, and she could’ve sworn in that moment her soul fled her body.
Electricity surged through her, muscles seizing, teeth clamping down on her tongue so hard she tasted blood. The current was liquid fire in her veins, burning through nerve endings down to the bone. She collapsed to the floor, body jerking involuntarily as she swallowed back a scream. Through watering eyes, she saw the third guard pointing his gun at the other prisoners, forcing them back against the wall.
“I said get up,” the first guard hissed, striking her with the butt of his rifle.
