I’m aware.
The session continues. I hear none of it.
Faith's procurist is talking again. The sacred fucking bonds of the Concord. His voice drones on and I want to reach across the chamber and make him stop. Permanently.
I don't care about any of it.
The thread-sight is screaming. Every lie in this chamber grinds against my skull. The static builds until I can taste it, metallic and wrong. No one knows I can see it. No one knows I'm drowning in the noise of their deceptions every second of every day.
And underneath all of it, this pressure in my chest. Constant. Pulling north.
"You're staring at the door again," Renan murmurs.
"I'm aware."
"Just checking. Wouldn't want you to accidentally look at something relevant."
My cock is still half-hard against my thigh, has been since she looked at me with blood on her mouth and didn't flinch.
Every shift in my seat reminds me—the fabric dragging, the constant low-grade ache of wanting something I can't have yet.
I should probably be embarrassed that half the Concord noticed, but I'm too busy remembering the exact shade of green her eyes were when she met mine.
Forest green. Darker at the edges.
I want to see them closer. Want to know if they change color when she's—
No. Focus.
"—the matter of northern trade routes requires deliberation—"
"He's lying," I say.
My voice cuts through the chamber. Daiven—still at Coin's podium, still talking about routes like he didn't just backhand a woman in front of everyone—stops mid-sentence.
"I'm sorry?"
"The northern routes." I don't stand. Don't need to. "You've been diverting shipments through War's territory for six months. Avoiding the tariffs. Faith knows. They've been taking a cut to stay quiet."
Silence.
Faith's procurist goes pale. War's delegation exchanges glances. Coin's entire section has gone still.
"That's—" Daiven's voice cracks. "That's an unfounded accusation—"
"Discord has eyes everywhere, Daiven. Did you really think we wouldn't notice thirty-two shipments vanishing from the official logs?" I tilt my head. "Faith's cut is twelve percent, which is insulting, really. They should have held out for fifteen."
"Discord has no proof—"
"I have ledgers. Witness statements. Cargo manifests with Faith's seal where Coin's should be." I smile. It's not a nice smile. "Would you like me to keep going? My people have been watching this operation for months. I was saving it for a rainy day, but I'm bored."
The procurist stands. "This is highly irregular—"
"So is skimming tribute and bribing religious officials, but here we are."
Renan makes a sound beside me. Might be a cough. Might be a laugh. Hard to tell.
"The accusations from Discord are—" Faith starts.
"Documented. The word you're looking for is documented." I lean back in my chair. "I run an intelligence network, not a guessing game. Every secret in this city passes through my hands eventually."
War's delegation is openly grinning now. They hate Faith almost as much as I do. One of their captains has produced dried meat from somewhere and is chewing it like he's watching a street fight. Good. At least someone's enjoying this.
"Perhaps we should adjourn," someone suggests. "Given the... disruption—"
"No." I stand. Slow. The chamber contracts around me, that instinctive flinch that happens when something dangerous moves. "I have a question first."
No one speaks.
"The girl." My voice carries. "The Solyne tribute."
Daiven's face tightens. "What about her?"
"Where is she being held?"
"That's not your concern—"
I move.
My body crossing the distance between us before his sentence finishes, and then my forehead is slamming into his face with a crack that echoes off the marble walls.
Blood sprays. His nose caves. He staggers back and I follow, grabbing his throat with one hand and squeezing until his eyes bulge.
"Not my concern?" I'm laughing. I don't know why I'm laughing. "Not my fucking concern?"
I knee him in the balls. Hard. He tries to double over but I've still got his throat, so he just makes this wet choking sound and his legs give out. I hold him up by his neck like a puppet with cut strings.
"Where is she?"
He can't answer. Can't breathe. His hands claw at my wrist, useless.
I slam him into the podium behind him. Wood splinters. Someone in the chamber screams. I don't know who. Don't care.
"Where. Is. She."
His guards finally move—two of them rushing toward me. I hear the click of Renan's pistol before I see him move.
"Ah-ah." His voice is pleasant. Almost friendly. "Everyone stays exactly where they are."
I glance over. He's got his gun pressed to the temple of the lead guard—a big bastard who was halfway to reaching me. The guard's frozen, eyes rolling toward the barrel he can't see but definitely feels.
"Go ahead," Renan says to me. Casual. Bored. "I've got this."
The other guards have stopped. No one wants to be the reason their captain gets his brains splattered across the Concord floor.
I release my grip, the pathetic excuse for a male plops to the ground. Daiven's trying to crawl away. Blood pouring from his ruined nose, one hand clutching his balls, the other dragging him across the marble floor.
More guards surge forward. Renan adjusts his aim without looking—just pivots the gun toward the new movement and they freeze.
"I can do this all day," he says. "Really. I'm enjoying myself."
I grab Daiven's ankle and drag him back.
"You hit her." I flip him over, plant my boot on his chest. "You put your hand on her face. You made her bleed."
"The tribute—" He's crying now. Actual tears mixing with the blood. "She spoke out of turn—"
"So did I." I grind my heel down. Feel ribs creak. "Are you going to hit me too?"
"Please—"
"Where is she being held?"
"Intake facility—n…north wing—please, I'll tell you anything—"
"Yes." I lean more weight onto his chest. Something cracks. He screams. "You will."
"Koshin." Renan's voice cuts through the noise. Not alarmed. Almost amused. "You're making a mess."
"You wanted blood on concrete, didn’t you?"
"The guards are getting twitchy. Might want to wrap this up before someone does something stupid."
I look around. The chamber is chaos—people pressed against walls, guards with weapons half-drawn but no one willing to test Renan's aim, Faith's procurist white as bone and clutching his robes like they'll protect him.
War's captain has stopped eating and is watching with the expression of a man who's just found religion.
I turn back to Daiven. He's whimpering under my boot, face a ruin of blood and tears and snot.
"North wing intake facility," I repeat. "Standard procedure."
"Y…yes—"
"If she has a single new bruise when I see her again, I'm coming back here. And I won't stop at your ribs." I grind down one more time, feel another crack, listen to him scream. Then I step off.
He curls into a ball on the floor. Sobbing. Bleeding.
My cock twitches. Still hard. Harder than before, actually. Something about the violence, the blood, the way his bones felt giving way under my boot—the way all of it is tied to her, to protecting her, to making sure everyone in this fucking room knows what happens when someone touches what's mine.
What's—
Fuck.
"The session will reconvene tomorrow at dawn," I announce to the room. My voice is steady. My hands are covered in blood. "Merit Daiven won't be attending. If I see his face again, I'll finish what I started."
No one argues.
I turn and walk toward the exit. Renan holsters his pistol and falls into step beside me, easy as breathing.
"Well," he says as the doors swing closed behind us. "That was fun."
"Was it."
"Watching you turn Daiven into paste in front of the entire Concord?" His grin is sharp. "Absolutely. I've been wanting someone to do that for years."
The street outside is too bright. Too loud. My skull is still full of static, the lies from the chamber clinging like smoke, and underneath it all that constant pull north.
"So," Renan says, matching my pace. "The mortal."
"What about her."
"Nothing. Just noting that you threatened Coin's representative, exposed a six-month smuggling operation, and beat a man half to death. All because he touched her." His mouth curves. "Subtle. Very subtle. No one noticed."
"Fuck off."
"Everyone noticed. I'm pretty sure Faith's procurist is going to need new undergarments."
We're entering Discord territory now. The streets narrow, the buildings get older, and the people who live here look at me with the particular wariness reserved for their own mad god. A woman steps out of our path. A child stares at me from a doorway until his mother yanks him inside.
The cobblestones tilt downward here. Everything does.
The city descends by inches until you realize you've been walking into the earth for blocks.
Buildings lean against each other, stone faces dark with soot and age, their foundations sunk unevenly into ground that gave way centuries ago when my chains shattered.
Oil lamps hang from iron hooks, their light yellow and thick, and the air tastes different—colder, heavier, carrying the mineral bite of the deep rivers that run beneath us.
No temples. No gilded facades. Discord doesn't decorate.
A drunk stumbles out of a doorway, sees me, and goes still. His hand drifts toward the knife at his belt—instinct, not threat—and then he presses himself against the wall and lets me pass.
My cock is still half-hard. The ache hasn't faded. Every step reminds me—she's farther behind me now, I'm walking the wrong direction, the pull is getting worse instead of better.
"She didn't lie," I say. Don't mean to say it.
Renan glances at me. "The mortal?"
"Iowyn."
"You know her name."
"I heard it."
"You remembered it." He processes that. "She didn't lie how? Everyone lies."
"Not her. Not once." The words scrape out. "The entire chamber was full of people performing, posturing, playing their fucking games. And she just... wasn't."