The cruelest traps are not built from lies. They are built from truths placed in the wrong hands.
From Shroud Methods and Countermethods, confiscated training fragment
Mira
The Ashforge door opens on heat thick enough to chew. It crawls under my jacket and sticks to the back of my neck, making the hidden blade against my ribs feel like a second brand.
I hate this outfit. I hate that it was my idea. The short skirt is riding too high on my thigh, and the seam of my left sleeve is scraping the same patch of skin over and over. It is an itch in my brain I cannot reach.
One, two, three.
I tap my index, middle, and ring finger against my thumb.
One, two, three.
I stop, but my skin is still humming.
Cassie notices. She always notices the rhythm of my static. Her fingers brush mine once before she lets go. It isn't a departure; she is just making room to reach her gun. That should probably be a red flag, but my heart has decided that her being ready to kill for me is the only romantic gesture that matters anymore.
The room is all blackened brick and dead furnace mouths. Six men are trying to look like they aren't sweating through their shirts. The air tastes like soot and that sharp, chemical Shroud cleaner they use to scrub away the evidence of a bad night. They missed a spot. I can smell the iron of old blood beneath the bleach.
Cassie stays close. She smells like gun oil and frosted citrus, with that faint, sharp edge of white camellia. Rori is a floral, mean pressure at my right shoulder. Kael is a shadow at my left.
Vaelis Aunrae sits at the center table. He looks like old Summer royalty left out in the rain to rot. Copper-dark hair, ember-gold eyes, and hands that look like they’ve never done a day of honest work in their lives. He is pretty in the way a poisonous flower is pretty right before you realize your lungs are closing up.
He smiles at me. I feel the fire behind my ribs wake up, hot and petty.
“Princess Firebrand,” he says.
The title feels like a physical weight. I want to shake it off. “Vaelis. You’re harder to find than you’re worth.”
“Most things are, if they’re worth having.”
“Bold talk for a man hiding in a basement.”
Vaelis stands up. He doesn't look at the furnace mouths or the soot. He looks at me, then his gaze slides to Cassie. He stops smiling. Whatever he thought a Princess’s wife was supposed to look like, he didn't expect the woman currently measuring the distance between his eyes and a bullet.
“Princess Cassandra,” he says.
“Vaelis.”
Cassie’s voice is a flat line. No title. No warmth. I love her so much I almost forget why we’re in this hellhole.
One, two, three.
“Kess,” I say.
The name is a spark in a dry room. One of the guards near the back shifts his feet. Vaelis doesn't move a muscle.
“Kess,” he repeats, like he is trying to remember a boring book. “The panther. Loud. Inconvenient. She had a very annoying habit of being where she wasn't invited.”
Rori’s voice cuts in, sharp enough to draw blood. “Funny how you only call a woman
difficult
when what you really mean is you were terrified she’d find you out.”
Vaelis doesn't even look at her. He stays focused on me. He is enjoying this. “The lead was real, Mira. That is why it worked. A shipment, black cases, men who weren't supposed to be there. She saw exactly what she was meant to see.”
“Operational lead,” Kael says from the shadows.
Vaelis taps his finger on the back of his chair. He is looking at Kael now, finally seeing the threat he cannot measure.
“I managed the cell,” Vaelis admits. He turns back to me, his smile opening like a wound. “But I didn't give her the lead.”
I breathe in soot and rage. “Then who did?”
“The man who wanted the problem solved before it grew teeth.” Vaelis leans forward, his voice dropping into something intimate and foul. “Taryx.”
The name empties the room.
The heat is gone. The smell of the Shroud cleaner is gone. There is only the memory of Taryx’s hand on my side. Taryx telling me I could not go. Taryx’s voice, smooth as silk, telling me Kess would be fine while he made sure I stayed exactly where he wanted me.
I see it now. I see the bait. I see the way he used my brand to keep me paralyzed while he aimed Kess at a grave. He knew I’d never leave a lead alone. He knew Kess would go in my place.
I taste bile. My stomach is a knot of cold wire.
“He used me,” I whisper.
Vaelis’s smile gets sharper. “You were the door. She was the destination. She died because he understood exactly how to pull your strings.”
“Enough,” Rori snaps.
Vaelis isn't listening. “She died because you were a convenient distraction.”
Cassie’s gun is out.
I didn't even see her move. One second her hand was near mine, the next, the barrel is inches from Vaelis’s face. The guards start to draw, but Kael is already there. A man hits the brick floor before his sword is even out of the scabbard. Rori’s hands are glowing, the air around her shimmering with heat.
Cassie doesn't look at the guards. She only looks at Vaelis. “You don't get to use her pain to dress up your confession,” she says.
Vaelis is finally sweating. I can smell it. The sour, sharp scent of a man realizing he is out of time.
I should say something. I’m the Princess. I’m the one in charge of this disaster. But I’m still standing in a house of cards that Taryx built, and I cannot feel my own hands. I wasn't blind because I was stupid. I was blind because he made the dark feel like safety.
My fire shrinks down to a single blue point. It is silent and mean.
Cassie’s thumb presses into my wrist. It hurts, but it is a good hurt. It is a real hurt.
“That’s what he wants, Mira,” she says, her eyes never leaving Vaelis. “He wants you to pick up the knife. Don't do it for him.”
I let out a breath. It is shaky and ugly, but it is mine.
“Cass,” I whisper.
She doesn't lower the gun, but the tension in her arm changes. She trusts me. The weight of that trust is the only thing keeping me from shattering.
Then the side door bursts.
It isn't a neat entrance. It is a crash of wood and metal. Everyone pivots.
Ferox comes through first, her magenta hair a mess and her eyes full of lightning. She is dragging a man by the back of his ritual robes. Tera is right behind her, his knife out and his silver hair catching the white light of the lamps. Chula is there with a lantern that is glowing a violent, silver-blue.
Lireal comes last. They look like they are made of glass, clutching a stack of files to their chest as if the paper is the only thing holding their bones together.
The man they are dragging is bound and bruised, but he is smiling. He has blood sigils on his cuffs.
Cassie’s hand goes perfectly still on my wrist.
Not the kind of still that means she is calm. The kind of still that happens right before a storm breaks.
Her scent shifts so fast my lungs ache. The frosted citrus turns into a razor. The camellia goes ice-cold. Beneath it all, something lethal and terrified locks into place.
I look at her. She isn't looking at Vaelis anymore.
She is looking at the blood priest.
The priest looks back at her, his pale eyes tracking the movement of her breath. His smile grows. It is the look of a man who just found something he thought he’d lost.
“Cassie?” I say.
She doesn't hear me. She lets go of my wrist.
She reaches for her second gun.