Page 23

S AFFRON HADN’T EVEN HAD THE CHANCE TO KEEP HER PAST a secret.

She had prepared for this for two decades.

She had studied and practiced and patrolled and studied some more, grown skin thicker than dragonhide and instincts sharper than wolf claws, learned everything she could about the Bloodmoons’ operation, cooked up half-baked plans for exiling her uncles from the city if things went south, and none of it mattered.

She was still losing.

That was the true horror of Lyrian Celadon.

It didn’t matter what you did—he was always several steps ahead.

Not for the first time in her life, words failed her entirely.

“So my question is twofold.” The kingpin stopped and turned on his polished heel.

“Firstly, why would the daughter of two of our most unfortunate victims willingly walk into our gamehouse in the first place? And secondly, does it matter? Because once you’re branded, there will be no way for you to betray us without immediate and agonizing death.

” Lyrian shrugged impassively. “And so it doesn’t matter if your motivations are not what you claim.

We’ll be able to control you regardless, fit you with a tight collar and a tighter leash, walk you down the streets of Atherin like a dog, should we so please.

And if you resist our orders, I know exactly who to hurt.

Auria Marriosan, Tiernan Flane, Nissa Naszi.

Your dear uncles. The moment you stepped foot in that gamehouse, you brought all of them with you. ”

Terror tied a noose around Saffron’s throat.

She’d been too brazen about this assignment, comforted by the knowledge that she was immune to the brand, to magical torture, and to truth elixir.

But the same could not be said for her loved ones.

She’d known from the beginning that she’d be dragging them into this perilous snarl of conflict—she knew enough about how the Bloodmoons operated to predict as much—but she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

She hadn’t counted on the kingpin’s terrifying memory, the way his cruel hands hovered over the city, tugging at the strings below.

Determined not to show Lyrian that he’d rattled her, she forced her chin high.

“If it doesn’t matter, cut the prattling preamble. Brand me.”

She felt Levan’s stare pressing into her, but she did not meet it.

Lyrian studied Saffron with onyx coldness. “Very well. I’ve always wanted a pet Silvercloak. Perhaps we can use you to turn every last member of your cohort one by one.” He tapped his wand on his palm. “Vogolan, fetch the prisoner from the cell next door.”

Vogolan left the room, and as Saffron’s gaze followed him out, she finally returned Levan’s glare.

His blue eyes were still blank and unfeeling, but there was the slightest flicker of his pupils, the sense that he was making calculations, analyzing her every word, her every move.

As though he was intrigued by her, despite all his best efforts to appear otherwise.

She had to be careful not to let that intrigue ossify into suspicion.

When Vogolan returned, Saffron gasped at the sight of the prisoner—face beaten bloody, clutching something small in his palm.

Neatras.

The croupier who’d urged her to flee. He coughed roughly, spitting out a bloodied tooth, his hair slick with sweat.

I see everything, Filthcloak.

Lyrian’s cold eyes gleamed. “The loyalty brand requires a living sacrifice in order to work. It seems fitting that Neatras be yours.”

Levan handed back her wand. Neatras’s head lolled dangerously, clinging onto consciousness for dear life.

Saffron stood frozen with horror, as though she’d been struck by effigias.

“I can’t,” she said, to nobody in particular, and sure enough, nobody answered.

Instead, Lyrian gave a contented sigh, and Saffron realized this was where the kingpin got his pleasure from: inflicting horror.

It was written in the flare of his pupils, the soft timbre of his moan.

She could practically feel it pouring into him, dark and potent. No need for velvines or concubines.

Dread slithered through her like a hailsnake, and she gripped her wand, contemplating what she would need to do.

She had never killed before. At least not intentionally.

There had been an incident in her fourth year on the streetwatch, when she’d cast a disarming spell with too much raw force—heightened power welling inside her from the pain of a leg wound.

The impact had sent the Whitewing thief sailing off a roof, his spine crumpling on the pavement below, his neck snapping like a bird’s.

It had taken Saffron months of Academy-mandated counseling to process the shame, the guilt. It was a good thing that she still reacted this way to manslaughter, the therapist had insisted. It was a good thing that she still had her humanity, no matter how much she believed she was immune to grief.

But killing Neatras would be so much worse. Because it was a choice.

“Just do it,” came a grunt from Neatras. “I’m dead anyway. Save yourself.”

Helplessness pressed in on Saff from all angles.

If the relic wand’s prophecy was anything to go by … she survived this encounter.

Which must mean she took this life.

She killed Neatras. Killed? Kills? Will kill? The tenses smeared together in her head. Did the nature of the prophecy mean this had technically already happened? She felt herself unspooling at the prospect.

She had always known, intellectually, that going undercover would lead her down some ugly paths.

She had known that to properly bed herself into the order of things, she would have to kill at their command.

But there was understanding with your head and there was understanding with your belly, with your heart.

“Last chance, Killoran.” Levan’s voice was indifferent, almost listless, yet she caught the impatient twitch in his stance. As though he wanted this to happen more than he was willing to admit. As though he too longed for a Silvercloak pet. “I’ll go after Auria Marriosan with or without you.”

Saff didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

At her inaction, Levan sighed, shaking his head with disappointment. “Fine. But you’d have saved us a lot of time and energy if you’d just let Segal kill you in the alley.”

“They’re all like this, son,” Lyrian sighed. “The Filthcloak beetles always refuse to die. But they are often so terribly useful that sometimes it’s worth taking them alive.”

Anger seared up Saffron’s throat like blazing bile, but she swallowed her hatred. She would not be like her grandfather, killed by a scarlet cloak for an ill-judged burst of outrage. She would keep cool, play the game, make measured moves toward her goal.

An abyss opened in her chest as she turned her attention to the man slumped at her feet.

If she didn’t kill him herself, the croupier would still die. Only she’d be incinerated with him, and this rare opportunity to gather Bloodmoon evidence would be lost. The Silvercloaks would be further than ever from bringing a case against them.

Kill or be killed.

Maybe this was how most murderers became murderers—not because of some deep-rooted evil, some innate bloodlust, but because they had no other choice.

A heretical idea, for a Silvercloak.

There was always a choice.

She just had to make the wrong one.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Neatras, her tone almost pleading. “I’m so sorry.”

Neatras’s hand tightened around what remained of his daughter, raising his chin and closing his eyes.

Saffron unhooked her brain from her emotions and raised her wand, a hard stone lodged in her throat.

“ Sen ammorten, ” she whispered, distant even to her own ear, the incantation uttered for the first time—but certainly not the last.

Yet nothing happened.

No unmistakable forked killing spell shot from her wand—only a pathetic waft of colorless vapor. Deep inside her lay a bottomless hollow, the feeling of a vast and glistening lake dried to a desolate husk, her well wholly sapped after the alleyway skirmish with Levan.

Saints. Would the Bloodmoons think she’d failed on purpose? That the sheer force of will required for such a curse was absent, and thus the magic would not obey her command? Would they think her too weak to join them?

Panic started to jackhammer against her temples, but she drew on her almost arcane ability to focus under perilous circumstances.

There were other ways to take a life. Terrible, terrible ways. But ways nonetheless.

One of the first things Professor Vertillon had drilled into the cadets at the Silvercloak Academy: sometimes you had to do things the old-fashioned way.

Hand trembling wildly, she pulled a simple steel dagger from her innermost cloak pocket. Its walnut-and-leather handle was carved with a decorative pair of fallowwolf fangs, a gift from her father’s father.

Gritting her teeth, she crossed to Neatras, cupped the back of his head as a lover might, and swiped the blade cleanly across his throat.

His flesh opened like a bloody mouth.

As he fell, he let go of his daughter. The encased eye rolled to Saffron’s boots, gray iris wide with horror and grief, all of it smeared in her father’s blood.

Saff clutched her hand to the wooden pendant around her neck, the familiar grooves of her parents’ jewels biting into her palm.

The grim reality of the assignment struck her then, sharp and raw as a killing spell.

Even if she came back from this, she would never truly come back. Not as she was, as she had been.

A whimper wracked her chest, and she could not silence it.

“How touching.” Lyrian’s voice was cold as the Tundra of Bones, and in that moment, she wanted to slaughter him where he stood. Evidence was more valuable than a corpse, of course. But Saints, what she wouldn’t do to see him dead. “Vogolan, restrain her.”

She had almost forgotten what came next.

The edges of her vision starred and blackened.

“You don’t need to restrain me,” she said weakly, as Segal and Vogolan yanked her by the upper arms, hard enough to bruise. “I agreed to this.”

“It’s one thing to consent,” said Levan, “and quite another to feel the pain. We need to keep you still. If you buck, the brand won’t take, and we’ll have to repeat it until it does.” His gaze was not kind, nor was it hostile. It was just empty. “It’s for your own benefit.”

Saffron was struck once again by the desire to plead, but she knew it was no use. This was something that had to happen.

Besides, some part of her knew she deserved this pain. She deserved to writhe and scream for the life she had just taken.

Neatras’s unseeing corpse watched as Segal dragged her to the wall.

Levan uttered an inaudible incantation, and Saffron’s arms snapped wide, deminite manacles folding out from inside the stone wall and closing around her wrists. They pulled taut, yanking Saffron’s hands so far apart that every muscle screamed in protest. Her feet only just grazed the ground.

Segal stood mere inches away from her, stale breath wafting over her face.

“ Et laceran .” He streaked the tip of his wand down the front of Saffron’s tunic and it tore cleanly in two, leaving her bare breasts and pale torso exposed.

Shame burned through her cheeks. She felt as powerless and humiliated as a hog on a spit. Sweat beaded on her clavicle, from the fear and the stifling heat of the room. Levan pointedly averted his gaze, and in that moment, Saff was grateful for the tiny show of humanity.

Lyrian rolled up his tunic sleeves. From a brass rack, he unhooked a poker with a solid circle on its end, then held the round stamp over the fire.

Saffron’s breaths came fast and shallow. The sight of the brutish instrument glowing orange sent a fresh lance of dread through her.

Wand in his other hand, Lyrian muttered a conditional curse at the licking flames.

“Ver fidan, nis morten. Ver fidan, nis morten. Ver fidan, nis morten.”

Saffron’s brain worked frantically. She’d never heard magic cast like that before: a hiss, a litany, a serpentine snap.

The flames grew darker, bloodier, until they were the exact hue of Lyrian’s scarlet cloak. The poker glowed furious white, and Lyrian withdrew it.

He stepped over Neatras’s body, paying it no mind, and Saffron wondered then whether the murder had truly been necessary.

The body had played no part in the spell; the poker had not been dipped in his blood or pressed against his unbeating heart.

Did Lyrian simply enjoy watching her suffer and squirm, enjoy watching her wage war against her own humanity?

It doesn’t matter if your motivations are not what you claim. We’ll be able to control you regardless, fit you with a tight collar and a tighter leash, walk you down the streets of Atherin like a dog, should we so please.

Panic clawed up her throat as he approached.

She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe.

Then the searing circle at its tip was upon her flesh, right over her heart. There was a split second in which she felt nothing, and then the agony cleaved her in two.

A frayed scream tore from her.

Her body violently rejected the scorching metal, legs bucking like a frightened foal in a bid to escape it, but the bindings at her wrists held firm, and she remained pulled taut beneath the torture, nowhere to go but inside the pain itself.

Still he held it there.

What began as a contained burning, a vicious shredding sensation like every one of her skin fibers was being pulled apart by lightning, became an all-consuming crimson. Her vision was cloaked scarlet, and her chest felt flayed open, flames licking at the exposed flesh inside.

Still he held it there.

Her other senses severed themselves one by one until nothing existed but the pain.

She folded in on herself like a dying star.

Still he held it there, the poker clamped against her skin, the surface fizzing and bubbling, but by now she barely saw anything but Lyrian’s vague outline.

The world pressed in on her from all angles until everything sank into darkness.