She was too late.

  The sound cracked in the confined space, and a prisoner in the cell in front of them fell, blood blooming across his chest like a macabre flower.

  The singing faltered, a momentary hitch of horror, but then it resumed, louder and more defiant than before. The guard snapped toward Shadera as she twisted the gun from his hands faster than she had ever moved. She fell to a knee, pushing the butt of it into her shoulder and open fired on the guards. Veyra dropped one after another.

  A baton crashed into her cheekbone and she felt it crack, her head snapping back. She forced her eyes to focus as she pointed the rifle upward and sent a bullet into the soft flesh under the guard’s chin and out of the top of his head. Hands clasped around her neck as the guard’s body hit the ground, and she clawed to keep her grip on the gun as it was snatched from her fingers.

  Bullets were flying from every officer’s gun into cells, tearing through flesh and bone with sickening ease as she was dragged from the floor by her throat. Bodies crumpled around her, voices silenced forever, but still the anthem rang out. A clarion call to the fallen.

  Shadera would never forget them.

  A scream, a wordless howl of anguish and rage, unleashed itself from her lungs as she kicked and screamed against the Veyra’s hold.

  “Kill me! Kill me instead,” she shrieked, the words tearing from the depths of her body. “I’m the one you want. They did nothing wrong!”

  Shadera threw back her head, her skull crushing against the mask of the guard holding her, and it fell from his face. He scrambled toward it, freeing her of his hold as her boots connected with the blood slicked floor. She lunged for another guard.

  She had to stop this, had to save someone—anyone.

  Another blow caught across her face that sent her sprawling. She tasted blood, felt the crunch of her nose breaking, but the pain was nothing compared to the carnage and music unfolding around her.

  A guard dragged her by the arm, his grip bruising as the toe of his boot found her stomach. Shadera recoiled into herself, retching acid as he threw her over his shoulder and turned toward the exit. Her nails broke and bled as she dug into his back, fists pounding against his armor.

  “Kill me! Please. Kill me instead,” she screamed again and again as the prison door slammed shut at the guard’s back.

  A sob lodged itself in her chest as she watched the massacre continue through the small square window of the prison entrance. The guard hauled her down the corridor, the song and window growing smaller as tears spilled over her bloodied cheeks.

  She would be the only survivor, she knew that.

  Knew that this act of savagery would be buried, would be hidden from this city.

  She would die before she let that happen.

  She barely registered the doors they passed, the turns they took, the elevator they’d stepped into—her focus narrowed to the single, searing point of her hatred for the man who held her.

  For the system that bred him.

  For the world that allowed such brutality to flourish.

  The elevator crawled to a halt and the guard shoved Shadera from his shoulder as the doors slid open. She stumbled, her boots smearing blood across the polished marble floors as he dragged her toward two doors at the end of the hallway.

  “You can’t silence us all,” Shadera spat, the words tasting of blood as the guard stopped in front of closed doors. “You can’t kill everyone outside of the Heart and expect no one to rise up against it.”

  The guard stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing, then raised his fist and knocked on the door. The answering voice that sounded from the other side sent dread coiling down her spine.

  “Enter,” Maximus Serel said as the doors swept open.

  CHAPTER TEN YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE

  THE WORLD EXISTED IN layers of white and gray, each stacked atop the other until the thrum of pain lost all meaning.

  When Greyson woke, it was to the hard pulse of his own heart echoing against sterile tile, and the sharp medicinal stench of antiseptic burning the inside of his nose. No concerned mother gripping his hand too tight as she prayed he would live, no worried father waiting at his bedside. Just him, alone in a room, as hospital machinery beeped in a lazy rhythm. His eyes fluttered open and closed, the room alternately swelling and shrinking around him with every breath.

  He drifted.

  He was aware, at times, of the thin blue line of an IV stitched into his arm, of crisp sheets tight over his body, of the industrial drone of lights overhead. Sometimes a nurse appeared at the edge of his vision—a blur of pale hands, a voice so gentle it made his skin crawl. Once, he thought it was his sister, but the woman’s eyes were too kind.

  It had been three days since the bullet. Or maybe thirty. The days bled together, measured only by the pain that ebbed and surged beneath his rib cage, by the cadence of footsteps in the corridor, by the clock that never seemed to move.

  He floated through dreams of blood and ceremony and Shadera’s face. She stared at him, her eyes two chips of verdant glass, reflecting nothing back but contempt. Then she became his father, and then his brother, and then a darkness that consumed the rest. He would wake, gasping, only to find the world less real than the dream.

  He did not speak to the nurses, or the doctors, nor to the aides who came to check his vitals and reset the monitors. When they asked for his pain level, he lied and said it was nothing. When they checked the wound, he stared through them, his mind crawling back to the altar, to the moment of unmasking.

  He’d never seen anything like her, never witnessed such brutality and hunger for violence in any woman. She’d fought better than any of the Veyra he’d trained with, and that only made his hate for her penetrate deeper into his bones.

  She was a Daggermouth, a weapon, and she needed to be put down. He would be the one to do it, as the Executioner, and the thought brought him some semblance of satisfaction. It would be a full-circle moment. A bullet for a bullet. A Daggermouth life snuffed out. Payment in blood for what they had done to Brooker.

  An execution that actually brought justice.

  Greyson let out a long sigh, tearing his eyes away from the ceiling as he pressed his fingers to his neck to feel the steady, relentless beating of his own pulse. As much as he’d wanted her bullet to be the death of him, he wanted to be the death of her more.

  A drone entered the room and his eyes twitched toward it, narrowing as it hovered above him before scanning his body. It beeped three times with a green flashing light as a nurse entered the room. She didn’t look up from the tablet in her hand as she tapped it against the underbelly of the drone to download his vitals. A smile reflected in eyes behind her mask as she set the tablet on the small table next to Greyson and pulled back his sheet.

  She worked with deft, clinical hands, never wincing at the angry red of the wound or the bruises that marbled his abdomen. She made quiet noises of approval as she checked the stitches, the healing, the lack of infection.

  “You’re lucky,” she said, voice pitched low as she pressed a fresh pad to the wound. “It missed everything important.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Greyson answered, his voice dull beneath his mask as he watched a small amount of fresh blood bloom through the gauze. He liked the color, the way it soaked and spread and reminded him of his own fragility.

  The nurse’s eyes darted up to meet his, her professional facade faltering for just a moment to reveal something akin to understanding swimming in their depths.

  “I’ll need to change your dressing again in a few hours, but you’re healing remarkably well. The doctor says you’ll be able to leave tomorrow morning.”

  Greyson turned his gaze back to the ceiling. “When can I resume my duties?”

  “The doctor recommends at least two weeks of rest before—”

  “I didn’t ask what the doctor recommends,” he cut in, his voice sharper than intended. He forced it softer and let out a shallow breath. “When can I resume my duties physically?”

  The nurse swallowed, looking away from him as she pulled the sheet back over his abdomen. “Physically, you could return in a few days, but it’s not advisable.”

  Greyson nodded once. He knew these were the questions his father would ask. The longer he stayed down, the weaker the Serels would look and questions would arise. He would happily take the advised time, would let his body heal, but the President would never allow it.

  The nurse hesitated for a second by the side of his bed, watching as his mind churned. “I… I could write in your chart that there is still internal bleeding. That you need longer to recover.”

  Greyson’s eyes snapped to hers and for one suspended moment, they stared at each other. She’d offered to lie to the Heart for him, had seen something in his features that reflected the turmoil swirling inside his head. That sentence alone could get her killed.

  “No, I would never put you in that position,” he finally said, shaking his head.

  The nurse picked up her tablet, dipping her head in response before taking a quick glance over her shoulder then looking back at Greyson. “Doctor Knowles says you’re important, outside of your name. He said that the cause needs you. To do whatever we can to keep you alive.”

  A knot formed in Greyson’s throat at her words, his pulse quickening. He opened his mouth to respond, but the words were silenced before they could break into the open as Captain Mikel strode into the room. The nurse stepped back, pressing herself against the far wall, her eyes frantically fluttering between them as he approached the bed.

  “Greyson,” Mikel said, voice crisp. “The President requests your presence at Haven Tower immediately.”

  The nurse stepped forward, her spine straightening with professional courage. “He can’t leave yet. The doctor hasn’t cleared him for—”

  Mikel’s hand shot out, shoving her aside with enough force that she stumbled back against the medical cart, sending instruments clattering to the floor.

  Heat prickled over Greyson’s skin as he slowly pushed himself from the bed, ignoring the sharp stab of pain that lanced through his abdomen.

  “Apologize,” he growled toward Mikel.

  Mikel stared at him, confused.

  “Now.”

  Mikel turned toward the nurse, dipping his head in feigned sincerity. “Please, forgive my manners, it will not happen again.”

  Greyson pushed from the bed on the tail of Mikel’s words. His legs felt strange beneath him, disconnected somehow, as if they belonged to someone else. Three days of immobility had left his muscles weak, his balance uncertain.

  He turned to the nurse, clasping his hands behind his back to hide the tremors. “Can you please retrieve my clothing?”

  She hesitated, then moved to the small closet in the corner. She pulled out the black Executioner’s uniform, pressed and clean, no sign of the bullet hole or blood that had soaked through it.

  “Sir, please,” she tried one more time as she walked the small distance between them and placed the clothing on the bed. “Your wound could reopen.”

  “Thank you,” Greyson said in answer, his tone final as he gave her one last nod. “Both of you, please excuse me while I dress.”

  She stepped back, eyes dropping to the floor as Mikel exited the room. She hurried out behind him, closing the door at her back and scurrying away down the hall.

  Greyson waited three heartbeats before allowing himself a single, shuddering exhale. The effort of sitting up had torn something, fresh blood warming the bandage. He pressed his palm against it, feeling the hot liquid seep between his fingers. His eyes darted around the room, looking for more gauze, anything to hide this bleeding from prying eyes.

  The last thing he needed was his father seeing evidence of his injury. Greyson dragged himself toward the supply cabinet above the counter, pulling open drawers and leaving smears of blood on the handles until he found what he needed. Medical tape, a skin stapler, and thick white pads of gauze.

  His eyes shot to the window in the door, making sure he was out of Mikel’s sight before he turned his back toward it. He ripped the bloody dressing from his stomach, and pushed out a readying breath. His fingers pinched the wound together as a deep groan fled his lungs, and pressed the stapler to his skin. He didn’t count, didn’t give himself time to think about the pain that would follow as he squeezed the mechanism and felt the first staple burrow into his skin.

  For a split second the oxygen caught in his throat as he rapidly stapled six more into place, then dropped the instrument to the ground and grabbed onto the counter’s ledge to stabilize himself. Greyson ground his teeth together, and breathed through the pain until it had faded enough to straighten.

  This kind of pain was clarifying, was welcome, and he would take it ten times over if it meant saving him from aximus’s mental warfare. Physical pain drowned out the gnawing in his chest, the parts of his soul that’d been chipped away by the Heart, by his father.

  Slowly, he pressed a fresh piece of gauze to his abdomen and wrapped the medical tape around his middle to hold it into place as he walked back to the clothing folded perfectly at the end of the bed.

  Getting dressed was an exercise in controlled agony. Each movement pulled at the staples and sent fresh waves of nausea climbing his throat. By the time he fastened the last button, sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip behind the mask.

  The door opened without a knock. Captain Mikel stood in the threshold, his own mask betraying nothing of the man beneath.

  “Mr. Serel,” Mikel said, inclining his head. “The President is waiting.”

  Greyson noted the earlier use of his first name, and now “Mr.” instead of “sir,” the subtle shift in Mikel’s posture. News traveled fast within the Veyra. Already, he was diminished in their eyes—the heir who ‘d removed his mask, who’d shown weakness before an enemy.

  The weakest son of New Found Haven.

  “Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” Greyson replied, voice steady despite the fire eating through his gut. He strode to the door, forcing his limbs to move without proof of pain. Greyson paused two paces ahead of the captain. “And, Mikel,” he said over his shoulder. “I am still the Executioner, don’t ever address me informally again.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mikel’s answer was immediate, his back straightening as he nodded.

  The hospital corridor stretched before him, impossibly long. Each step was a battle against gravity, against his body’s desperate plea to lie down and surrender. Greyson focused on his breathing, on placing one foot in front of the other without faltering.

  He would not show weakness.

  Not again.

  * * *

  THEY DIDN’T BOTHER TO remove the blood from her face. They didn’t care about the split across her brow or the caked red that matted her hair. Shadera wasn’t even sure if it was her blood, or the blood of the Veyra officers she’d killed that left her skin sticky as they dragged her into the President’s office in Haven Tower.

  Her ribs felt as if they’d been pulped to jelly, each breath a saw blade dragged through her chest, but she stayed upright as they shoved her forward.

  The office was a monument to power, walls paneled in obsidian and glass, the far windows opening onto the city’s decaying rings. The air buzzed with the faint static charge of technology, the filtered air making the coppery scent of violence that clung to her body more pronounced.

  Her heart stuttered in her chest at the sight of the man responsible for every tragedy that plagued her life. Rage ignited underneath her frantic heart, but she bit it back. She was still alive, and there was a reason for that. She’d learn that reason before making any rash decisions.

  President Maximus Serel sat behind a desk the size of a grave plot, his head bent low over an arrangement of documents and holo-screens. He wore the golden mask, polished to a shine so bright she could see the ruin of her own face reflected in its curve.

  The Veyra guard forced her into a high-backed chair facing the desk, then withdrew, door closing with a vacuum hiss.

  Maximus didn’t look up.

  He signed a document with an antique pen, then pressed his thumb to a scanner. The silence stretched on, punctuated only by the slow pulse of her own pain. She wouldn’t be the one to break the silence, wouldn’t give him any reason to think she feared him.

  Instead, Shadera considered leaping across the desk, and wrapping her broken hands around his throat, but the weight of her injuries pinned her in place.

  He finished with the paperwork, then sat back and regarded her in silence. The mask made it impossible to read him, but she felt the weight of his attention as surely as a gun barrel at her temple.

  When he finally spoke, the voice was cultured, refined, but empty of warmth.

  “You are Shadera Kael,” he said. “A Daggermouth.”

  She said nothing.

  “Daggermouths have killed many of my men over the years. You personally have destroyed Veyra property valued at millions of credits. You attempted to assassinate my son.” He let the words hang in the air, as if listing the items on a shopping list.

  Her lip curled. “I’d do anything to make the Heart bleed.”

  It probably wasn’t the wisest response if she was hoping to live, but she didn’t expect she’d see her thirty-first birthday at the rate she was going.

  His mask tilted. “You have damaged the future of this city. It’s a far greater injury than any you could inflict with a bullet.”

  He stood then, slow and calculated, every movement calibrated for effect. He circled the desk, stopping just in front of her. The mask’s eyes bored into her, reflecting back the animal heat of her hatred.

  Without warning, Maximus reached up and removed his mask, and the air in the room seemed to freeze.