Expensive.
Architecture that screams we own everything and we want you to know it.
The gates open before we reach them. Someone was watching. Someone's always watching.
Inside, the noise of the city drops away. Manicured gardens. Servants in matching livery who don't look at me as we pass.
I'm nobody here.
Less than nobody.
A line item on a ledger, a debt paid in flesh.
At least the math is simple.
The handlers take me through a side entrance, down a corridor lined with portraits of people who look like they've never missed a meal in their lives. We pass a training yard—I catch a glimpse of bodies sparring, the crack of wood on wood—and then we're inside again, climbing stairs, turning corners until I've stopped bothering to track them.
They stop in front of a heavy door. One of them knocks twice.
"Enter."
The voice is male. Bored. Bored and certain—the combination that always means pain is coming, because people with that voice make their own entertainment.
The door opens and the handlers push me through.
The room is an office. Large desk, expensive chairs, windows overlooking the training yard below. A man sits behind the desk, watching me. His eyes move over my body the way my father inspects horses before purchase.
Checking for defects.
Deciding what needs breaking first.
Kairis. I know the name. Everyone knows the name. Coin's enforcer. The one who handles discipline.
Lucky fucking me.
"The Solyne tribute." He stands, moves around the desk. Tall. Broad. Built to break things smaller than him, and I'm considerably smaller than him. "I expected someone more... impressive."
"Join the club." It comes out flat. Quiet. Shut up shut up shut up—
He circles me slowly. I track his hands—both empty, both loose at his sides. His footsteps are heavy on the stone floor. He's not trying to be quiet.
"You spoke out of turn in the Concord." He's behind me now. I don't turn. My shoulders are screaming at me to move, to run, to do something other than stand here waiting. I don't move. "Embarrassed my representative. Made House Coin look foolish."
Still don't answer.
"When I give an instruction, you obey. Immediately. Without question." He's in front of me again. "Kneel."
My knees lock. Just for a second—this stupid, involuntary refusal that I know is going to cost me. But my body doesn't give a shit about consequences right now. My body remembers every time I knelt for my father and got hit anyway.
Kairis's eyes narrow.
The first blow catches me across the face. Same cheek Daiven hit. The pain layers on top of the existing bruise and I stumble sideways, catch myself on a chair.
"Kneel."
I straighten up. My vision swims. Blood is running from my lip again, dripping onto the expensive carpet.
I don't kneel.
