It should.
The merchant is lying about the silk. The guard was definitely drinking last night. A mother promises her child everything will be fine, and that one's so rotten I can almost smell it.
Their threads twist in the air—shadow-dark, pulsing wrong—and my skull aches from the noise of it all.
Renan walks beside me, matching my pace. He hasn't spoken in two blocks, which either means he's bored or he's cataloging which of these people would be easiest to kill. Probably both.
"This is a waste of time," I say.
"Everything's a waste of time." He sidesteps a cart without looking. "That's never stopped you before."
"It should."
"And yet." He gestures ahead at the Concord building, all that marble and self-importance rising against the skyline. "Here we are. Walking toward politics like idiots."
The crowd parts ahead of us. They don't know why they're moving—just that something in their gut tells them to get out of the way.
I've stopped caring whether it's my reputation or my presence that does it.
The result is the same: space where there wasn't any, and the particular quality of silence that follows Discord through Arkenhold.
"Coin's going to be insufferable today," Renan says. "I can feel it."
"Coin's always insufferable."
"More than usual. They've got something they want to show off." His mouth curves, dark and sharp. "Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll blow up in their face."
"Define lucky."
"Blood on marble. Preferably theirs."
I almost smile. Almost. "Now you're just trying to make me optimistic."
My wrists itch as we approach the steps. The scars there pulse faintly, reacting to proximity—to the slab beneath this building where they bound me millenia ago. The other Houses call it sacred ground. I call it what it is: a monument to their fear.
The guards at the entrance don't meet my eyes. One of them has been lying so long I can't tell where the truth ends anymore—layers of deception built up until even he doesn't know what's real. The other is clean, which means either exceptional integrity or exceptional stupidity.
"Ten gold says Faith starts with a prayer," Renan mutters as we walk through the doors.
"Sucker bet. They always start with a prayer."
"Fine. Twenty says the prayer mentions 'sacred bonds' at least three times."
"You're on."
The Concord chamber is a fishbowl of political theater, and every person inside is performing. Faith's delegation sits in their ivory robes, threads pulsing with righteous certainty that masks the rot underneath. War's people sprawl in their seats, loud and obvious. And Coin—
Coin's section gleams with gold thread woven into their clothing, their hair, their very fucking presence. Their lies are the prettiest. Polished until they shine.
Renan finds our seats. Discord's section is off to the side, half-hidden by a pillar. Not an accident. They want us here but not visible.
I sit down and immediately want to stand up again.
"I hate this room," I say.
"I hate this city." Renan settles beside me, somehow managing to look both bored and dangerous. "But specifically, yes. This room is worse."
Faith's high procurist stands to address the chamber. Ildarin Seth, with his voice of absolute certainty that makes my teeth hurt.
"We gather today to address matters of tribute, territory, and the sacred bonds—"
Renan holds up one finger.
"—that hold our great Houses in harmony. May the sacred bonds of the Concord—"
Two fingers.
"—guide us toward wisdom, as we honor the sacred bonds forged by our ancestors—"
Three fingers. He turns to me with a flat expression. "Pay up."
"After."
"You'll forget."
"I never forget." I lean back in the chair, forcing my shoulders down. "I just choose not to remember."
The proceedings drone on. Territorial disputes. Trade route arguments. A half-god inheritance case that Faith wants jurisdiction over because, why not. The static behind my eyes builds with every passing minute—too many people, too many masks, too much performance.
"I'm going to fall asleep," Renan says quietly.
"Do it. I'll tell them you died."
"Tragic. They'll have to pause for mourning."
"At least twenty minutes."
"Worth it."
A clerk rushes past with documents. His thread is so dark it's almost black—skimming tribute, the dumb bastard. He'll be dead within the month. Coin doesn't tolerate that kind of theft.
"—the matter of House Solyne's outstanding debt to the House of Coin—"
Renan shifts beside me. He's watching Coin's section now, his expression flat, paying close attention.
Coin's representative stands. Merit Daiven, the iron ledger snake himself. His thread is immaculate—not honest, just controlled.
"The debt incurred by Lord Solyne has reached a sum that requires... alternative compensation." Daiven's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "As per the contract signed three generations ago, the House of Coin has the right to claim equivalent value—"
I stop listening. Alternative compensation means someone's being sold. Mortals get traded here constantly, their bodies weighed against gold on a scale that always tips toward the Houses.
Renan catches my eye. We could leave.
I'm about to take him up on it when the doors at the back of the chamber open.
Two handlers drag a woman into the room.
My attention snaps to her before I decide to look. I'm tracking her—the rigid line of her spine, the way she holds her shoulders, the stillness of someone who's learned that flinching only makes it worse.
The handlers grip her arms too tight. I see the pressure points, the way their fingers dig in.
Then she steps into proper light, and the noise stops.
Just—stops.
I don't understand. The chamber is still full of lies. I should be drowning in the static of a hundred threads pulling at my senses. But the pressure behind my eyes eases, and for the first time in decades, I can actually fucking breathe.
She's the quiet. She's the absence of static.
Her breathing is slow and even. Despite the bruises I can see forming on her arms, despite the finger-shaped shadows on her throat that make my hands curl into fists.
I want to put my mouth there. The thought surfaces raw –uninvited. I want to trace those bruises with my tongue and make her forget anyone else has ever touched her.
What the fuck.
I don't—I don't do this. Mortals are background noise. I've never looked at one and felt anything except boredom or the occasional dark amusement when they try to deceive me.
But she's not lying.
I search for her thread—the silver or shadow that would tell me what masks she's wearing—and I find nothing. Not concealment. Just honesty. Brutal, exhausted, bone-deep honesty that sits in the air around her and refuses to apologize.
She doesn't believe in any of this. The Concord, the Houses, the political theater she's being dragged into—none of it registers as real to her. She's here because she has no choice, and she's not pretending otherwise.
"—offered as tribute to settle the Solyne debt in full," Daiven is saying. "The daughter of the House, Iowyn Solyne, will enter service to—"
Iowyn.
She doesn't react when they say it. Her face stays flat, her breathing stays even. But I catch the micro-tension in her jaw, the slight tightening around her eyes. She expected this. She's been expecting it for a long time.
"Koshin." Renan's voice is low. Not warning—observing. "You're staring."
"I'm aware."
"You're staring a lot."
"Still aware."
He's quiet for a moment. "Huh."
I don't ask what that means. I don't care.
She's being positioned in front of Coin's section. Her father stands somewhere in the mortal gallery—his thread a tangled mess of fear and relief and desperate self-justification. He wanted this. He traded her to clear his debt, and he's already telling himself it was the only option.
Daiven approaches her with proprietary interest, circling her slowly. "You understand your position now? You belong to House Coin. Your service, your obedience, your—"
"My body." Her voice is flat. Exhausted.
"You can skip the speech. I know what I am.
A payment." She tilts her head, and something flickers in her eyes—not defiance, just truth.
"Though I'm curious what the interest rate is on a human being.
Does my value depreciate with use, or do you calculate that differently? "
The chamber goes still.
Daiven's face doesn't change, but his thread spasms—Loss of control, not pure anger. He backhands her hard enough that the crack echoes off the marble.
Her head snaps to the side. Blood blooms at the corner of her mouth.
She doesn't fall.
She doesn't fucking fall.
Her feet shift to catch her balance, her shoulders square back up, and she turns her head to face him again with blood on her lips and absolutely nothing in her eyes that looks like submission.
My cock goes hard so fast it hurts.
I'm on my feet before I decide to move. The chair scrapes back against the stone floor, and the sound cuts through the chamber's shocked silence. Every head turns toward me. Every eye drops to the very obvious erection straining against my trousers.
I don't give a fuck.
Renan rises beside me, and I feel his attention sharpen—not trying to stop me, just ready for whatever comes next.
"This should be interesting," he murmurs.
Daiven's eyes flick between my face and my cock, and his thread goes pale with sudden fear. Good. He should be afraid. He should be terrified. He just put his hands on something that belongs to me, and he has no idea how close he is to dying on this sacred fucking ground.
"Discord." Faith's procurist speaks carefully into the silence. "Is there a... concern you wish to raise?"
I don't answer him. I'm looking at her.
She's looking back. Green eyes, sharp and clear, blood still wet on her mouth. She doesn't flinch from my attention. Doesn't look away from the obvious evidence of what watching her defiance did to me.
Her thread stays clean. Honest. She's confused—I can see that much—but she's not performing confusion. She's not performing anything.
"The ruling stands," Daiven says, voice tight. He's trying to regain control, to pretend the Mad God of Discord didn't just get hard watching a mortal take a hit. "The tribute is accepted. House Coin—"
"Careful." The word comes out low. Quiet. The kind of quiet that makes people step back without deciding to. "You touched something."
Daiven's throat works. "She belongs to Coin now. The Concord—"
"I don't give a fuck about the Concord."
More silence.
Renan leans in slightly. "Front door? Or through Coin's section?"
I want to say Coin's section. I want to cross this chamber and put a knife through Daiven's hand—the one he used to touch her—and watch him realize exactly how badly he miscalculated.
But that would start a war. Tonight. Right now. And I don't have her yet.
"Not yet," I say. The words scrape out.
"Okay." He shifts his weight. "Let me know when."
The handlers are pulling her toward the exit now, faster than before. Someone gave them a signal. Get the mortal out before Discord does something everyone will regret.
She doesn't look back at me.
I watch her until the doors close, blood still visible on her chin, spine still straight.
Then I sit down.
My cock is still hard. I don't adjust it. I don't hide it. Half the chamber is pretending not to look, and the other half has given up pretending. Let them look. Let them wonder what the fuck is wrong with the Mad God of Discord.
I'm wondering that myself.
"So," Renan says, settling back into his chair. His tone is casual, almost conversational. "That's new."
I don't answer.
"The mortal. The one you just—"
"I know who you mean."
The session continues. More cases, more lies, more theater. I hear none of it.
Iowyn.
She took that hit and stayed standing. She bled and didn't bend. She looked at me with blood on her mouth and didn't flinch from what she saw.
Coin thinks they own her now.
They're wrong.