I stay there until dawn, in the hush, holding what remains of my heart in one hand and my son in the other.
CHAPTER 24
TAKHISS
The door opens and the light hits like an accusation. I’m used to white rooms that hum and scrape at your sanity, but this is different — warmer, threaded with spice and incense that tries to pretend the world is softer than it is. A woman stands in the doorway like a promise and a threat all at once: Autrua. Priestess. Politician. Snake wrapped in silk.
She doesn’t look up when they unclip my cuffs. She lets the guards fumble, lets them tug at the restraints until the metal bites; then she lifts a single hand and they stop, suddenly obedient. Her voice is paper and steel. “Sergeant Takhiss,” she says, with a smile that shows just enough teeth. “You will come with me.”
A guard snarls something about procedure. Autrua inclines her head, and the words the man uses vanish from his mouth like he swallowed them whole. Favor debt. Reputation. Her name is a currency they accept without arguing. They unclasp the last of the bindings for me with hands that tremble slightly. I take the sliver of freedom and stand on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
“You’re Coalition,” I say, because I have to place the knife before it’s twisted.
“I serve the Flame and what it can give back to our people,” she answers, like that explains everything. “I’m not your enemy, Takhiss.”
My hand wants to close on the hilt of the anger inside me. “You were the one who smiled while you signed my transfer. You were the one who let them cuff me and drag Ella away.”
She doesn’t flinch. She lifts a finger and touches her wrist where a bracelet glints, a network of tiny sigils. “I was ensuring the balance. Now I will rebalance it again.”
I follow her out because the guards don’t see me as anything but a bag of meat to be moved. Because the alternative is staying in a cage and letting the chemicals scrub the edges of the only thing that makes me human: the memory of her hands
The transport smells like too-old leather and recycled air. Outside, the world is an angular blur of docking pylons and sun-bleached metal. Autrua sits across from me, legs crossed, robe falling away just a fraction to show a band of tattooed script along her calf. It’s the kind of tattoo that marks you as someone who can call in favors and have armies listen.
“You owe me nothing,” she says, after a long minute where neither of us moves. “But your existence owesusleverage. You understand leverage, yes?”
“I understand a clenched fist,” I say. “I’m not a bargaining chip.”
“You are a variable,” she says, and smiles like she’s delivering a benediction. “Variables can be shaped.”
I spit at the floor between us. It sounds small and useless, but I mean it. “I don’t want shaping. I want her. Ella. You said you could find her. Find her.”
Autrua leans forward, the incense scent curling into my nostrils until I taste it like copper. “Finding it is easy. Returning is harder work. You will need a claim. A purpose. A name they cannot ignore.”
“A claim?” I bark. “You handed me freedom. I don’t need titles.”
“You do if you want to walk out of an Alliance courthouse with a child and not be hauled back in as contraband,” she replies. “You want a place under the flame where they cannot touch you. You want rights, resources. You want to protect what you’ve planted.”
“I want my mate.” My voice comes out flat. “I want my son, if he exists. I want blood in my veins that remembers my hands.”
Autrua studies me like she’s tasting the words for their salt. “A claim makes people listen. Property. Rank. Ceremony. All these things give you weight in a world that respects paperwork more than truth. I can give you that. I can make the Coalition grant you citizenship again. I can give you land. A name that will make a magistrate hesitate.”
“You hand me land, I hand you what?” I ask. I can feel the trap like a jaw waiting to close.
“Nothing that violates your honor,” she says, hands open as if to show transparency. “You will do things that help our people. You will be visible. You will be a symbol.” Her smile narrows. “You will not be useful to our enemies.”
“Translate: I work for you.”
“You fight for the Flame — not as a puppet. As a leader.”
The word leader tastes like a promise and a poison. “And in return?”
“In return, I will find Ella. I will locate the child. I will smooth the channels so the Alliance cannot easily snatch him away while we negotiate. I will give you the time to make a claim that means something. But this is not charity, Takhiss. It is an investment.”
An investment. Her voice makes it sound like counting stars for profit. I’ve seen what the Flame does to men who ignore the cost.
We ride in silence until the transport docks in a facility that smells faintly of spices and old paper — a Coalition outpost that’s less a prison and more a palace of quiet bureaucracy. The men who move around here bow under some weight of fear that I don’t carry; they kneel with their hands cut out to Autrua like they’d give their teeth if she asked.
She walks me down corridors that have names stamped on the walls. “Restoration Center,” “Return Court,” “Registry of Citizens.” Places that sound like salvation because they are labeled with soft words.
