He stood up.
My chest aches.
Not tears.
I don't cry.
Haven't cried since I learned it just makes my father angrier. But my throat is tight and my eyes burn and I'm so fucking tired of being surprised when someone treats me like a person.
That's pathetic.
I know it's pathetic.
Doesn't make it less true.
I lie back on the silk sheets and stare at the ceiling. Gold leaf patterns. Stars and moons. The kind of craftsmanship that takes months, all of it looking down on a girl who's about to be broken into something useful.
Tomorrow, Kairis will hurt me again. And the next day. And the day after that. Until I kneel. Until I beg. Until I become whatever Coin wants me to be.
That's the plan. That's how this ends.
But I keep seeing silver eyes. Keep hearing the crack of Daiven's nose breaking against a god's forehead. Keep feeling this stupid warmth that won't fade no matter how many times I tell myself it doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't change anything. I know that.
It shouldn't matter.
It matters anyway.
I hate that.
The informant is lying about the shipment dates.
His thread pulses dark at the edges, rotting where it connects to his chest. Standard deception—not sophisticated enough to be interesting, not dangerous enough to warrant real effort.
He's skimming.
Probably has a family to feed, debts to pay, the usual tragic backstory that makes people think theft is justified.
I don't care.
"—transferred through the eastern corridor on the fifteenth, my lord, I swear it—"
"Fourteenth." I don't look up from the intelligence reports spread across the table. "And it wasn't the easterncorridor. It was the service tunnel beneath Merit's counting house. The one you've been using for months."
The informant makes a sound.
Wet.
Pathetic.
We're in the operational hub—maps on the walls, intercepted messages stacked on every surface, three of Discord's people pretending to work while they watch me take this idiot apart. Venn at the communications desk. Sira sorting through documents. Kade cleaning a knife, hoping I'll let him use it.
The informant is tied to a chair in the middle of the room because I couldn't be bothered dragging him somewhere private. He's been bleeding on my floor for twenty minutes.
My floor.
I'm going to make someone else clean that up.
