Page 23 of Daggermouth

Greyson would take what he wanted for the next few hours, would lose himself to the last bit of control he still had, he would devour it. Then, in seventeen hours, he would watch as his duty devoured him.

Chapter six

Do Not Hesitate

Greysonfinallyliftedhishead from his pillow at four a.m., the interior of his skull a hollowed chamber of echoes. His sheets were unrumpled—there was no dream, no nightmare, not even rest. He rolled to his feet and stood naked in the center of the room for a full minute, letting the cold draft rise up his thighs. It was always worse at this hour, the time before the city’s noise swept in to drown out his existence.

He moved through the darkness by muscle memory, stretching and cracking his limbs as he walked.

The ritual started in the shower, where water ran hot and he stood until his skin stung red and senseless. He washed every inch of himself over and over again, careful to leave no trace of Maya, no hint of indulgence that might linger if his father chose today of all days to search for evidence of weakness.

He dressed in silence.

The black of his Veyra uniform marked him as the Executioner—tailored to the bone, every seam calculated for utility and intimidation. He laced the boots tight, knuckles turning white as he cinched the tongue, until it cut into flesh. He ignored the faint tremor in his left hand.

At the vanity, he paused, staring at the mask on its velvet stand. To wear it was to become something else, to kill the man inside and give birth to the function.

Greyson picked it up and turned it in the growing light. He examined it for flaws, micro-scratches, any evidence that someone had tampered with it. He trusted Maya to never harm him, but his father had warned him that enemies could find a way in through the smallest fissure. That a single hairline crack could mean the difference between legacy and oblivion.

He hoped for oblivion

The metal felt cold on his skin as he pressed the mask to his face and adjusted it until it fell into place perfectly against his features. A heavy breath gathered in the base of his lungs and he let it slowly seep out as he strode to his weapons room at the other end of his apartment, next to his study.

His fingers punched in the code like he’d done a thousand times before, without thinking of the numbers. The metal enforced door opened with a sigh and he stepped into the room. From floor-to-ceiling, weapons of all shapes and sizes hung on the walls, shelves of bullets and tactical equipment were neatly placed and numbered—inventoried so not one item was out of place. A large metal table sat in the middle of the sterile room, a place for Greyson to clean and maintain his weapons.

He pulled his Veyra-issued handgun from the wall and set it on the table, its matte surface absorbing the bright white light. He cleaned it before every use, dismantling and reassembling with surgical care. As he loaded the magazine, his hand betrayed him—a brief shudder, a relic from days earlier when he’d failed to pull the trigger at the appointed instant.

A snarl exploded out of Greyson and he slammed his shaking fist onto the steel table. That moment of weakness had been watched by thousands—by his father, by the Veyra, by the entire fucking city.

That hesitation had lost him his last shred of control.

Greyson leaned forward, sucking in a deep, sharp breath, and curled his fingers around the edge of the table. He counted to ten, to twenty, to thirty, trying to swallow back the rage that owned his soul.

Maybe his father was right. He was weak, too weak to stand firmly on either side of his life.

He blew out the breath, letting his fingers slowly continue working on his gun. He chambered a round, inspected it one last time before he flipped the safety on and pushed it into its holster strapped around his shoulders.

Greyson had twenty-seven minutes until he was scheduled to appear in the plaza. He spent seventeen of those walking in slow circuits of the apartment, inspecting every line and surface for order. He scanned the living area one last time, taking inventory of the silence and clean lines. He memorized the shape of it, the way the first hint of morning struck the glass, the way the city waited beneath.

The rooms looked identical to the day he’d moved in. He liked it that way, the sense that the outside world could not touch these walls. It was just another bit of control Greyson was losing. After tonight, it would no longer belong to just him, it would belong to the Vow, to the contract his father had forced upon him. It would belong to Moraine Daunt.

At six twenty Greyson walked to the entryway and pulled on his gloves. His hands slid into the leather, each finger fit in their place like it had been molded to his bones, and he flexed them until the tremor ceased. The weight of the day pressed in, but he pushed it down.

There was no place for doubt today, no place for hesitation. Only obedience, and the cold perfection of the task.

Dawnbledcrimsonacrossthe plaza’s marble, and Greyson stood ready to paint it redder still. The platform waited beneath him like an altar of judgment, its pristine surface soon to be christened with the blood of another rebel. He adjusted his mask that had become more familiar than his own face and checked his sidearm.

The weight of it felt heavier today.

The condemned knelt before him in silence. A woman from the Cardinal ring, her crime nothing more than smuggling medicine to the Boundary. The same crime he’d committed over and over again. Her hands trembled against the red cord that bound them, but her eyes held defiance even as tears carved tracks down her dirt-stained cheeks.

Greyson’s throat constricted. Another life to take. Another soul to feed the Heart’s insatiable hunger for order.

He should be kneeling beside her.

Threehundredyardsaway,crouched behind the ornate railing of a luxury balcony, Shadera watched through stolen eyes.

The mask she’d liberated from a drunken Heart socialite felt foreign against her skin—platinum and pearl where she was used to the light cotton fabric of her balaclava. But it granted her passage into this tower, this perfect vantage point to study her prey.