Coin's representative stands. Merit Daiven, the iron ledger snake himself. His thread is immaculate—not honest, just controlled.
"The debt incurred by Lord Solyne has reached a sum that requires... alternative compensation." Daiven's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "As per the contract signed three generations ago, the House of Coin has the right to claim equivalent value—"
I stop listening. Alternative compensation means someone's being sold. Mortals get traded here constantly, their bodies weighed against gold on a scale that always tips toward the Houses.
Renan catches my eye. We could leave.
I'm about to take him up on it when the doors at the back of the chamber open.
Two handlers drag a woman into the room.
My attention snaps to her before I decide to look. I'm tracking her—the rigid line of her spine, the way she holds her shoulders, the stillness of someone who's learned that flinching only makes it worse.
The handlers grip her arms too tight. I see the pressure points, the way their fingers dig in.
Then she steps into proper light, and the noise stops.
Just—stops.
I don't understand. The chamber is still full of lies. I should be drowning in the static of a hundred threads pulling at my senses. But the pressure behind my eyes eases, and for the first time in decades, I can actually fucking breathe.
She's the quiet. She's the absence of static.
Her breathing is slow and even. Despite the bruises I can see forming on her arms, despite the finger-shaped shadows on her throat that make my hands curl into fists.
I want to put my mouth there. The thought surfaces raw –uninvited. I want to trace those bruises with my tongue and make her forget anyone else has ever touched her.
What the fuck.
I don't—I don't do this. Mortals are background noise. I've never looked at one and felt anything except boredom or the occasional dark amusement when they try to deceive me.
But she's not lying.
I search for her thread—the silver or shadow that would tell me what masks she's wearing—and I find nothing. Not concealment. Just honesty. Brutal, exhausted, bone-deep honesty that sits in the air around her and refuses to apologize.
She doesn't believe in any of this. The Concord, the Houses, the political theater she's being dragged into—none of itregisters as real to her. She's here because she has no choice, and she's not pretending otherwise.
"—offered as tribute to settle the Solyne debt in full," Daiven is saying. "The daughter of the House, Iowyn Solyne, will enter service to—"
Iowyn.
She doesn't react when they say it. Her face stays flat, her breathing stays even. But I catch the micro-tension in her jaw, the slight tightening around her eyes. She expected this. She's been expecting it for a long time.
"Koshin." Renan's voice is low. Not warning—observing. "You're staring."
"I'm aware."
"You're staring a lot."
"Still aware."
He's quiet for a moment. "Huh."
I don't ask what that means. I don't care.
She's being positioned in front of Coin's section. Her father stands somewhere in the mortal gallery—his thread a tangled mess of fear and relief and desperate self-justification. He wanted this. He traded her to clear his debt, and he's already telling himself it was the only option.
Daiven approaches her with proprietary interest, circling her slowly. "You understand your position now? You belong to House Coin. Your service, your obedience, your—"
