“I’m going to kill you,” he said, voice ice cold through the mask.

  Shadera’s laugh was all teeth as she slammed her forehead into his face. The mask absorbed most of the impact, but he staggered back, releasing her as blood began to pour from her nose. She followed with a vicious kick to his sternum that sent him crashing into the ceremonial altar as she snatched the knife from the ground.

  “Not a fucking chance,” she snarled.

  The veils toppled as Greyson rolled across the altar, coming up with his own dagger fisted in his palm. Blood trickled from beneath his mask where the impact had split his lip and he spat red onto the pristine floor.

  They collided like storm fronts, blade against blade, each strike proof of lethal training. Greyson moved with unexpected accuracy, each parry flowing into counterattack. His reach exceeded hers, but Shadera was faster, darting inside his guard to score a shallow cut across his forearm.

  Greyson’s response was a low sweep that nearly took her legs from under her. She leapt, twisting in midair, but his fist caught her in the kidney as she landed. Pain exploded through her back, bright and clarifying.

  Shadera’s vision blurred, the oxygen fleeing her lungs. She recovered with vicious speed, driving her fist upward. It connected with Greyson’s jaw, snapping his head back with a satisfying crack.

  Greyson lunged forward, slamming her against the wall and sending the knife flying from her hand. The impact sent shock waves up her spine as his right forearm pressed against her throat and his dagger found a soft spot between her ribs and sunk into her.

  Jaeger’s words pulsed between her ears as she gasped at the pain lancing up her side.

  ‘Do not underestimate him, Kael.’

  Shadera had absolutely, without a doubt, severely under-fucking-estimated him.

  She drove her knee up between his legs. Greyson doubled over, his grip loosening just enough for her to twist free and slam her elbow into his temple.

  Shadera grunted between clenched teeth as she pulled his blade from her side and flipped it in the air, catching it in her fist.

  “You fight well for being the Heart’s little bitch,” she admitted, spitting blood onto the floor.

  Greyson circled her now, his movements predatory as he pulled a new blade from somewhere behind his back. “And you’re skilled for Boundary trash.”

  They clashed again, blades singing against each other. Steel kissed steel as they traded blows too fast to track, their bodies a violent dance. Shadera felt the familiar rhythm taking over—the perfect clarity of combat, where nothing existed but the next strike, the next breath.

  A lucky slice caught her bicep, opening a deep wound that immediately soaked her sleeve crimson. She hissed, switching Greyson’s blade to her other hand without breaking stride.

  “Tired so soon, Daggermouth?” Greyson taunted, but his own breathing had grown labored.

  “You wish,” Shadera snarled.

  She charged, feinting high before dropping into a slide that took her beneath his guard. Her blade found the back of his knee, slicing through fabric and flesh. Greyson roared in pain but didn’t fall. Instead, he pivoted on his good leg and drove his elbow down into her collarbone with crushing force.

  Something cracked. White-hot agony exploded through Shadera’s chest. She rolled away, gasping as Greyson created a bloody trail behind every step he took.

  She launched herself at him again, but Greyson was ready. He caught her in midair, using her momentum to slam her down onto the altar. The marble cracked beneath the impact, and Shadera felt something tear inside her. Her vision swam, darkness threatening at the edges.

  Greyson leaned over her, blade pressed to her throat.

  “Who sent you?” he demanded.

  Shadera smiled through bloodied teeth. “Fuck you.”

  With a desperate surge, Shadera’s hand slid to her thigh to retrieve her last weapon—the Veyra-issued gun. In one breath, she pressed it to his stomach and fired.

  The silenced shot was barely louder than a cough.

  Greyson jerked back, releasing her as crimson saturated the fabric on his abdomen. He staggered back with one hand pressed to the wound. Shadera rolled off the altar as he slipped on the blood spilling from his leg and stumbled to his knees.

  The gun came up smoothly, trained between the eyeholes of his mask. Greyson froze, blood dripping from his wounds, chest heaving.

  In the distance, boots thundered down the corridor—Veyra, coming to save their precious heir. Shadera knew she had seconds left.

  “Beg,” she whispered. “Beg like they begged you.”

  To her shock, Greyson straightened, shoulders squaring despite the pain it must have caused.

  “Do it,” Greyson said, voice eerily calm.

  She stared at him, brow furrowing at such an easy surrender.

  Was he begging for death?

  “What?” she panted, tightening her grip on the trigger.

  “Fucking do it,” he said again.

  Before Shadera could respond, Greyson did something she never expected. He reached up, blood dripping from his fingers, and removed his mask.

  The obsidian face lifted away, revealing features carved from shadow and light—high cheekbones, a strong jaw, eyes the color of winter sky. Blood trickled from full split lips, but his gaze was clear, almost peaceful.

  Shadera froze, gun still pointed between those impossibly blue eyes. The most sacred law of the Heart—broken before her. To see his face was a death sentence.

  The doors burst open.

  Veyra poured into the room, weapons drawn. Shadera heard the click of a hundred safeties disengaging, as a hundred red targeting dots scattered across her body like a deadly constellation.

  The Serel and Daunt families followed closely behind the Veyra. They froze in collective horror at the tableau before them—Greyson Serel unmasked, facing a Boundary assassin with a gun to his head.

  She was going to die here. But so was he.

  Their eyes locked, assassin and heir, caught in a moment of perfect, terrible understanding.

  CHAPTER EIGHT THE FALLOUT

  GREYSON STARED BACK AT Shadera as he let his mask slip from his fingers and clatter to the floor. The sound of metal striking marble echoed through the room like a final heartbeat.

  For a moment, everything froze—the Veyra with fingers on triggers, Moraine Daunt with a hand clasped over her masked mouth, even the air itself seemed to crystallize around them.

  Greyson didn’t turn to his father.

  His eyes remained locked with Shadera’s, a strange calm settling over him like snowfall. This was it.

  The end.

  No more executions. No more pretending.

  No more loyalty to a system that had consumed his soul.

  The bullet in his gut was liberation.

  “Greyson!” Elara’s scream sliced through the silence as she pushed past the Veyra and rushed to him. The cry was muted to him, muffled like a distant wail somewhere in the city. His head began to buzz, limbs tingling with loss of sensation.

  Elara fell to her knees at Greyson’s side, and he let himself collapse into her chest as her hands pressed against his wounds.

  The Veyra began to move, weapons trained on Shadera’s head as the President’s voice cracked through the room like a whip.

  “Hold!”

  His father’s command froze the guards mid-step. Maximus pushed through their ranks, golden mask fracturing the light as he advanced toward his son.

  “What have you done?” Maximus’s words were half snarl, half gasp as he looked from Greyson to Shadera.

  Greyson wasn’t sure if he was referring to the mask he’d removed or the bullet she’d put in his abdomen. Knowing the President, he cared more about the mask.

  His father began barking orders at the Veyra.

  “Get the Daunt family out and get my son to the hospital!” He turned to Shadera, lips curling into a sneer. “And put this Daggermouth filth in the hole.”

  The Veyra officers moved in formation, surrounding Shadera with weapons raised, the red dots growing larger as Greyson watched.

  Still, she kept her gun trained on him with no fear in her green eyes. They were bottomless, unrepentant.

  Greyson wished she hadn’t hesitated.

  A Veyra officer tackled Shadera from behind, sending her weapon sliding across the floor. She fought like a cornered animal, with a ferociousness Greyson had never witnessed in anyone.

  His vision went black for only a second, light slipping back in just long enough to see his father’s hand wrap around a Veyra captain’s arm, ordering him to keep the Daunt’s quarantined. His sight pulsed again, black, then fading light, then back to black.

  Greyson didn’t hear as the medical team arrived.

  He realized then that the world’s noise had receded until all that remained was the slowing beat of his own heart as his body lifted from the bloody marble floor. He was cold, untethered, weightless as he drifted into somewhere deep inside the abyss.

  His mind was a dark, twisted place that sometimes even frightened him. A place that no light or happiness thrived.

  Memories surfaced like bodies in a flood, all claws grasping for his flesh to pull him to hell.

  He’d let them, of course.

  They blended together, these ghosts of both past and present. Faces without masks, people he’d killed. People he’d failed to save. Each execution had carved something vital from him until he was hollow inside, an empty vessel for the will of the Heart.

  He’d been seven the first time he’d watched his father kill a man.

  The rebel had been brought to their private residence, and beaten for information but remained defiant. Greyson remembered how his father had removed his golden mask and laid it carefully on the desk as if it were too precious to dirty with the blood of someone less-than. Maximus had wrapped his fingers around Greyson’s chin, holding his head still as he placed the gun between the man’s eyes and shot him without hesitation.

  Blood had sprayed across the pristine carpet, droplets landing across Greyson’s face and clothes.

  ‘This is how we maintain order,’ Maximus had said, voice steady as he replaced his mask. ‘A Serel does not hesitate, a Serel does not show mercy. A Serel does not look away.’

  Greyson remembered, and he remembered every death since.

  The darkness shifted, memories giving way to sensations. He was aware of the movement, violent jerks. Someone was tugging him, hands pressing against the wound in his stomach. Pain bloomed, then receded, then bloomed again brighter and sharper.

  He heard his mother’s voice, high and frantic, demanding they save him. Save the heir. Save the legacy.

  Not save her son. Never that.

  Light stabbed through his eyelids. Hospital lights, the white ceiling peeling past overhead as they wheeled him through corridors.

  His father’s voice cut through the haze, threatening the medical staff with execution if word of this was leaked. The words followed Greyson into the dark as consciousness slipped away again for only a breath, or what felt like it to him.

  When awareness returned, it was fragmented. He caught snippets of conversation, felt tubes inserted into his veins, heard the steady beep of machines monitoring his reluctant survival.

  His body fought to live while his mind craved the quiet of extinction.

  “Blood pressure dropping—”

  “—more fluids—”

  “—bullet missed vital—”

  Greyson drifted again, sinking deeper into himself.

  In darkness he found a strange comfort. He always had. Here, there were no masks, no expectations, no laws of the Heart to follow. Just silence—beautiful, peaceful silence.

  The quiet was interrupted again by a new voice, sharper than the others. “I need everyone out of the room. Now.”

  Through slitted eyes Greyson caught the silhouette of a man in surgical scrubs, mask covering the lower half of his face. Not the mask of the Heart, but of the doctor.

  “President Serel, with all due respect, I cannot operate with you breathing down my neck.”

  His father’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “You will operate in whatever conditions I dictate, Doctor Knowles.”

  “Then prepare to watch your son die.” The words were flat, clinical.

  Yes. Yes, let me die. He tried to force his eyes open.

  “The bullet fragmented. I need space and concentration,” Doctor Knowles added.

  A tense silence seized the room, broken only by the steady beep of machines. Then his father’s footsteps retreated, followed by others.

  Greyson felt a sharp prick in his arm, then warmth spreading through his veins. The doctor leaned in close, voice dropping to a whisper.

  “I know what you did in the Cardinal last month. The medical supplies that appeared in the clinic. I recognized the serial numbers. Thank you, you saved ten lives.”

  Greyson tried to focus on the man’s face, but the drugs pulled his eyes closed. Then, the darkness swallowed him whole.

  * * *

  MAXIMUS SEREL STRODE INTO his office in Haven Tower, the golden mask suffocating him. His jaw ground underneath it, using all his strength not to tear it from his face as Clay and Moraine Daunt followed behind him, their own masks perfect reflections of Heart tradition. Elara and Lira were already there, standing near the window, postures rigid and worried.

  “This is outrageous!” Clay Daunt’s voice filled the room as the door closed behind them. “A Daggermouth in the Vow chamber! Your son removing his mask before that parasite!”

  Maximus turned slowly, the weight of his gaze enough to make Clay step back.

  He did not answer to this pathetic excuse for a man. Clay was weak, had always been weak. A stomach not strong enough to hold down his breakfast at the sight of an execution and brain too dull to be any use to the Heart.

  The only thing he was good for was his money, and a breedable daughter that seemed to steal all of his spine at her conception.

  “Your concern is noted,” he said, keeping each word measured.

  “Noted?” Moraine’s voice cut in, sharper than her father’s. “This goes beyond concern, President Serel. I was promised the heir to the Heart and now your son has contaminated himself. His face has been seen by that… that animal.”

  Maximus remained perfectly still, though his rage flared at her insolence. “Choose your next words carefully, Moraine.”

  “The law is clear,” Clay interjected. “When one’s face is seen outside of the sacred bond of the Vow, their life is forfeit. Both parties must be executed.”

  Maximus clenched his fist then slowly unfurled his fingers, wishing he had a gun in his hand to shove it down Clay’s throat and pull the trigger. His methods, his power, had been questioned one too many times this week.

  “Are you suggesting,” Maximus started softly, dangerously, “that my son—my last living heir—should be put to death for breaking a law I created? In a city that my family built?”

  If it were any other person, any other family name, Maximus would have put a bullet through their skull the moment they saw Greyson in the throne room maskless.

  But it wasn’t.

  A scandal like this could threaten what he had built, the lifetime of power he had accumulated. Maximus would not lose that power under any circumstance—to any law.

  “The law—” Clay began again, his voice trembling now.

  “I am the law!” Maximus roared, stepping so close to him that their masks nearly touched.

  Clay’s posture wilted, his shoulders slumping as he took a half step back. Even behind his mask, his fear was palpable. Moraine stood still beside him, her silence more defiant than any words.

  “If you ever suggest executing my son again,” Maximus continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to suck all oxygen from the room, “I will lift a single finger, and your entire bloodline will disappear from the Heart’s memory. Do you understand me?”

  Clay nodded stiffly, his eyes darting to his daughter.

  “I did not hear you,” Maximus pressed.

  “Yes, President Serel,” Clay managed. “Forgive my… presumption.”

  Elara stepped forward, her movements cautious as she kept her eyes lowered to the floor and spoke. “There’s a loophole.”

  All eyes turned to her. Maximus’s jaw tightened beneath his mask. “What did you say?”

  Elara swallowed, straightening her spine. “When I drafted the mask law, I included provisions for extreme circumstances. Accidents. Cases where a mask might fall in another’s presence.

  “In such cases, the parties have a choice: execution, or to take the Vow with each other, since they’ve seen each other’s faces.” Her hands clasped together, knuckles white. “We cannot prove Greyson willingly removed his mask. It could have fallen during the struggle.”

  Silence descended as the implications sank in.

  Maximus knew that was not the case, knew Greyson had taken it off of his own volition. He saw the mask in his son’s hand, saw as he dropped it to the floor as if he were offering himself up to this fate.

  “You’re suggesting,” Moraine said, voice trembling with rage, “that Greyson should take the Vow with that Boundary filth?”

  “I’m stating the legal options,” Elara replied, voice steadier now. “Greyson could be forced to take the Vow with the mercenary instead of facing execution, the law applies to him as elite. The Daggermouth would essentially receive clemency by default if he chooses the Vow.”

  Moraine made a strangled sound behind her mask and Clay’s hand shot out to steady his daughter.

  “This is outrageous!” Clay’s free hand balled into a fist at his side. “I will not let you push my daughter aside for some criminal!”

  Maximus stopped abruptly, turning to face him. “Again you presume that your opinion matters to me. Again, you speak to me with such contempt.”

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  “Mr. Daunt,” Maximus continued, “I suggest you consider your position carefully. Your wife—is she not currently receiving the highest level of medical care the Heart can provide for her condition?”