“And the First Law?” she asks.
I tap my sternum lightly. “Satisfied.”
It’s a lie, technically. Cosmic balance is never “satisfied.” It’s just temporarily not angry.
But it’s satisfied enough for tonight.
Voren’s gaze lifts to the sky, as if listening for dead whispers. “They’re moving.”
“Who?” Dreven asks.
“The living who pretend they aren’t,” Voren replies.
We don’t go to the church. Not immediately.
We cut through wet grass, silent as sin.
Instead, we find tracks.
Not boot prints. Not animal marks.
Wards, laid like spider silk—thin, precise, Order magic trying to pretend it’s invisible.
Tabitha crouches, fingers hovering an inch above the line. “They’re here.”
“Under the church,” Dastian says, eyes bright. “I can feel the sanctimony from miles away.”
Voren’s mouth tightens. “They’re building a net.”
I look down at the ward line, and something hot rises in me. Not anger. Not yet.
Disgust.
Dreven’s voice is low at my shoulder. “Say the word.”
I close my eyes and breathe.
Light, restrained.
Shadow, locked.
Death, waiting.
Chaos,conducted.
I open my eyes. “We go in quietly.”
Dastian looks wounded. “Quietly?”
“Yes,” I repeat. “Quietly. We take proof. We take names. We take their ability to do it again.”
“And then?” Dreven asks.
My smile is cold. “And then we make an example.”
Tabitha stands. “You are not a slayer anymore, Nyssa. You cannot just kill and leave.”
I turn my head slowly. “No, I’m a god, and I answer to no one.”
