3. The Leash
THE LEASH
DAWN
Green cloaks GO HOME (in boxes)
PAINTED ON A DOCKHOUSE WALL, GATEWAY
Dawn didn’t pick her targets anymore. Just killed what she was pointed at, same as any weapon.
That’s why she was under a table, cheek pressed to a sticky floor.
Someone was getting railed on the other side of a too-thin wall, judging by the rusty whine of old mattress coils.
She would have picked a nicer brothel, herself.
This one smelled like old gin and cheap perfume. Like it’d quit trying.
The savuthe smoke tugged at her. The flash of skin under skirts teased. Not yet, she told herself. Work first. Fuck later.
The squeaking quit. Not a minute later, a door swung open and her target strutted out with his shirt buttoned crooked. Good for him. At least he got one last tumble. He was younger than she expected. A haversack hung over his shoulder.
Dawn waited a beat after the door closed and then slid to her feet, shadow-quiet. Only her necklace of trophies clinked faintly. She adjusted her hat to tuck the pink ends of her hair under the brim. Most folks in this town knew her on sight, and the hair was a dead giveaway.
The man paused in the alley to light a pipe. A flame flared behind his curled hand before her knife sliced into his throat. Blood surged warm and thick over her wrist. She eased him down quietly, a practiced motion.
His pockets gave up a few coins, a sealed packet, a ring fat with sapphires. She slipped it all into her jacket. The haversack had fallen open when he dropped, and papers spilled in the dust along with a green cloak, unfolding as it slipped to the ground.
Dawn froze. She held up the cloak. Three silver pins glinted at the collar. Not just an enforcer. An enforcer captain.
“Fuck.”
Always before, Lore had sent her after corrupt merchants, gang leaders, maybe an ex-lover or two. Enforcers were Pentarchy military police. That shit should be off-limits.
She stuffed the cloak back in the bag with the papers. She’d killed plenty of assholes, but this crossed a line. Dawn had her own secrets. She didn’t need this kind of heat.
She wiped the blade on the dead man’s shirt. Slipped down the alley. Walked fast, but not too fast.
She fucking hated this job.
Dawn rounded a corner and nearly ran into Lorry Jones pissing on a wall. He grinned and waggled his cock at her. Jackass. Didn’t need to see that. Didn’t need him to place her here either.
Patrol lamps flashed at the end of the block. She palmed her knife, considered her options, and knocked into Lorry. He grunted, but he didn’t seem to notice that Dawn slipped the bloody knife into his pocket as she passed.
When she reached the end of the alley, she tipped her hat forward and shouted at the patrol. “If you’re looking for the captain, he was talking to that guy!”
The soldiers pivoted toward Lorry. Dawn kept on going. Poor bastard should’ve stayed home. She refused to feel bad. A choice between a drunk criminal and her own skin? That was easy math.
Starfall Sanctuary sat on the western edge of Gateway, where half-built chaos gave way to rocky foothills. The compound walls were real stone. The city would grow up around them and fall to rot long before those walls crumbled.
Inside, gardens ran in neat rows with enough food to feed a small army. Children darted between the cabbages. Their laughter made Dawn smile. A flux generator hummed smooth and steady. Blue-robed acolytes shuffled through the complex.
Her jaw tightened. The prophet had built all this.
Lore Tavis, with his slick speeches and borrowed gods, made his own church when the old one wouldn’t ordain him.
He bent rules and bodies to his will. And damn him, it worked.
The pantries were full. The lights stayed on.
Lore and his gospel of the “new gods” had done what the Pentarchy and their army of enforcers never could. Starfall was a good place to live.
As much as she hated the man, he took care of his people. Hard not to respect that. But for tonight, hate would do just fine.
Lore’s chambers were at the end of a hall.
Her boots clicked as she stalked down it, threw the door open without knocking.
Ancient fae relics glittered behind him like stars trapped in glass.
Dawn didn’t kneel. Didn’t kiss his hand.
She saw herself to his desk and slung the haversack onto it with a thud.
“You knew he was Pentarchy.”
The asshole didn’t miss a beat. “Of course I knew.” He reached into the bag, drew out the green cloak, let it spill across his desk. “Captain Heron Valence. Second-in-command of the Gateway garrison. He’s been ramping up patrols.”
“Killing one of them brings the rest of them out. Like hornets. You sent me in there blind.”
“I sent you in there to do your job.” He pushed the cloak to the side. Pulled out a thick envelope. “Which you did. Efficiently, as always.”
He opened the envelope, and his eyebrows rose. “Deployment orders. Troop escalation schedule.” He looked up. “The Pentarchy wants to occupy the continent.”
She didn’t give a shit.
“You lied to me.”
“No.” He stood and moved around the desk. Stopped close enough she could smell amber and smoke on him. “If I’d told you the target was an enforcer, would you have refused me?”
“Guess not.”
“Then it makes no difference.” His voice went smooth. Always did before he asked for something. “Just one more thing.”
And there it is. Dawn needed a drink, but there was no use fighting it. “What’s that?”
“A scholar from Sovana came in on a clipper ship this morning.” He tapped the deployment orders. “The Pentarchy is tracking her.”
Dawn sighed. “Someone thinks she’s special.”
“It would seem so.”
“You want the girl or what she knows?”
“Both.”
He held out a hand, and she paused before taking it. His fingers lingered, his thumb tracing her knuckles. That familiar drain tugged at her, like standing too close to a flux conduit. She didn’t flinch, just let him have it.
The man was a leech.
He dismissed her with a smile. Dawn breathed easier as soon as the door closed behind her.
Colt found her in the courtyard. The boy was all mud and smiles.
“Show me your teeth,” he demanded.
She crouched to his level. Her fluxborn-tooth necklace clinked as she lifted it. He touched each tooth like treasure.
“What’s this one?”
“Lontherivio. A squid as big as a carriage. Saw it bite a man in half.”
His eyes went wide, and his innocent grin did something funny in her chest. She’d spent her life killing every fluxborn monster that crawled this world. Was damn good at it too. And now? Trapped. Leashed. Running errands for a man who pulled her strings and smiled while he did it.
Weeks since she’d strung a new tooth on her necklace. Weeks since she’d felt the rush of a clean kill.
“Is it true they used to be people?” Colt asked eagerly. “Before they made the true gods mad and got stuck as monsters?”
Where the fuck did he hear that? Dawn held in her choicest words for the kid’s sake, but she wasn’t going anywhere close to that story. Lore’s made-up gods had nothing to do with it.
“Adults will tell all kinds of lies if it gets you to behave,” she said. “My advice is, don’t listen.”
Colt nodded seriously, and his small fingers rested on the teeth like they were relics. “When you get more,” he whispered, “can you make me a necklace too?”
Dawn swallowed. “Sure, kid.”
A lie. When she broke Lore’s leash, she was never coming back.
A metallic screech cut through the courtyard, followed by screams and feet hitting dirt. It was coming from the east. The market. She could smell blood in the air and something else, sharp and wrong. Fluxborn. In Gateway.
Dawn was on her feet before she registered moving. The gates stood open. “Get the kids inside!” She grabbed the nearest acolyte. “You, close the damn gates.”
Colt tugged her jacket. “What is it?”
“I’ll handle it.” She forced calm into her voice. “You’re safe.”
The blue robes ushered children inside. Dawn stood alone, every scream prickling over her skin. It killed her to stand here, but someone had to guard the gates.
After some time the din faded. Someone else must’ve gotten the kill. Then the curfew bell rang. A deep ugly note rolled over the city. Dawn stopped to listen.
“Curfew?” she muttered. “Since when?”
Gateway didn’t ring bells. Gateway drank and gambled and whored straight through to firstlight. A curfew bell meant the enforcers were cracking down. Putting order where it didn’t belong.
Lore must have known this would happen when he gave her that job. What was his game?
She wasn’t going anywhere tonight. Come morning, she’d head to the market, see what was left. Maybe find whoever got the kill and buy them a drink.