I studied her.
Ember was dangerous, no question. Not just because she’d publicly invoked Arbitration, but because she believed every word she was saying. This wasn’t an act or a ploy for attention. Her certainty was keener than the blade she’d sliced her own skin with and cut even deeper.
And my own father’s words—his warning—kept playing in my head, over and over.
Watch what happens when jealousy is allowed to fester for too long. See what poison truly looks like.
Had he known Emberline would invoke the Right? Or had he been rambling, lost in his memories as he often was these days?
It takes a monster to twist something beautiful into a weapon filled with hate. Dread gnawed at my insides. He’d uttered those very words just moments ago. He, more than anyone else, knew what happened in the shadows of this city.
And today—of all days—he’d bled into the Basin.
And the Basin had judged him worthy.
“Do you think Marcello is careless?” I demanded, shoving everything aside except the problem at hand.
She blinked. “What?”
“My father,” I demanded roughly. “Do you think he’s careless enough to assassinate a Pentarch head, then stand before the Basin and drip his blood on the stone? The runes senseeverylie, Emberline,every single one. You say your father was a saint? Well, then, killing your father would be in direct opposition to the Compact. Yet the Basin accepted Marcello’s blood and deemed him worthy. How do you explain that?”
She hesitated. It wasn’t much. A breath, a falter.
But I saw her doubt, written across her beautiful face.
“I think,” she hedged, “that arrogance makes people sloppy.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Well, too fucking bad,” she hissed. “Because it’s the only one you’re getting.”
I rounded the table, closing the space between us. She held her ground, tilting up her head to meet my eyes. She stood almost a foot shorter than me, but she didn’t feel small. Not with that backbone of tempered steel and those eyes spitting hate.
“You understand that by invoking Arbitration, you’ve placed your fate directly in my father’s hands.” I couldn’t explain the tight, almost painful pressure in my chest right now, but she had to understand what she was up against. “He will be your judge and executioner. If you cannot prove your claim, he will erase you. Your brother. Your entire line.”
It had been almost two centuries since a true Purging had last occurred, and my father had sworn that in his lifetime, he would hold this Dynasty together by sheer will alone. There had been outliers, of course, my eldest brother being one of them, but the extermination of an entire foundational bloodline… even the Council of Shadows would have something to say about that decision.
“Ah. But you’ve forgotten one important detail.”
I frowned. “Enlighten me.”
She leaned in, close enough to see the faint, pale scar along her temple, half-hidden by a strand of dark hair. “You,Gabriel,” she whispered, pure wickedness dancing in her eyes, her mouth partly open, the tips of her fangs showing beneath her full upper lip.
The words landed low in my stomach, then settled lowerstill, like her fingers were already wrapped around my cock, stroking, and a growl built deep in my throat.
“What about me?”
“You said it yourself,” her satisfied smile sent a tremor of dread through me. “The Right of Arbitration demands a fair hearing. And that means someone must oversee the proceedings. Someone… trusted.”
Her smile sharpened.
“Someone exactly like you. His heir, his enforcer, his conscience.” Her voice was a soft, lethal thing. “If Marcello wants to prove his innocence, he will ask you to stand in judgment over me. Overhim.”
“That’s not how this works,” I argued, though I already saw the truth. She’d outmaneuvered me.
“Isn’t it?” she asked. “Tell me, Gabriel. If what you discover incriminates your own father… after all your talk of honor and the law, will you lie for him? Will you cover up Marcello’s sins?”
The question sliced deep, down to the decent part of me that still existed, the part of me I liked to believe was still good. “No,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
