Chapter 7
The informant is lying about the shipment dates.
His thread pulses dark at the edges, rotting where it connects to his chest. Standard deception—not sophisticated enough to be interesting, not dangerous enough to warrant real effort.
He's skimming.
Probably has a family to feed, debts to pay, the usual tragic backstory that makes people think theft is justified.
I don't care.
"—transferred through the eastern corridor on the fifteenth, my lord, I swear it—"
"Fourteenth." I don't look up from the intelligence reports spread across the table. "And it wasn't the eastern corridor. It was the service tunnel beneath Merit's counting house. The one you've been using for months."
The informant makes a sound.
Wet.
Pathetic.
We're in the operational hub—maps on the walls, intercepted messages stacked on every surface, three of Discord's people pretending to work while they watch me take this idiot apart. Venn at the communications desk. Sira sorting through documents. Kade cleaning a knife, hoping I'll let him use it.
The informant is tied to a chair in the middle of the room because I couldn't be bothered dragging him somewhere private. He's been bleeding on my floor for twenty minutes.
My floor.
I'm going to make someone else clean that up.
"I—how did you—"
"Because I'm not fucking stupid." I finally look at him. His thread is spasming now, dark and frantic. "Did you think we wouldn't check? Did you think Discord—the intelligence house, the one that knows everything about everyone—wouldn't verify your horseshit story before paying you?"
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
"That's what I thought."
Renan is leaning against the far wall, arms crossed.
"So," he says. "Do we kill him or just take the hand he used to sign the false reports?"
The informant starts crying. Actual tears.
Gods, that's embarrassing.
"Neither." I'm already pushing back from the table. "He's not worth the mess. Dump him in the Waste Lands. Give Death something to do beside brood."
"Generous."
"I'm in a good mood."
I'm not in a good mood. I'm in the opposite of a good mood. I've been in the opposite of a good mood for six hours, and the pressure beneath my ribs won't fucking ease.
Seven blocks north. She's seven fucking blocks north and I can feel the distance in my chest. I know exactly where she is. Could walk there blindfolded. Could find her in the dark with my eyes cut out.
What the fuck is happening to me.
Kade drags the informant toward the back exit. The crying gets fainter.
Good.
I was about to gag him just to make it stop.
"You're staring north again," Renan says.
"I'm aware."
"That's the eighth time in the last hour. I've been counting."
"Then stop counting."
"Can't. It's entertaining." He pushes off the wall, crosses to stand beside me. "The interrogations were shit today. You know that, right? That one should have broken in four minutes. You let him ramble for twenty."
I don't answer. My attention keeps sliding—away from the reports, away from the maps.
"The mortal," Renan says.
My jaw tightens.
"The one from the Concord. The one you threatened Coin's representative over. The one you got hard watching take a hit."
"I remember who she is."
"Good. Because you've been thinking about her instead of working, and your distraction is making my job harder."
I turn. Face him fully. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell me what's happening." His voice doesn't change—still flat, still dry—but his eyes are sharp. "You've never been distracted. You're the most annoyingly focused person I've ever met, and today you let a shit informant lie to your face for twenty minutes before you corrected him."
Silence.
Venn and Sira are very carefully not looking at us. Smart.
"I can feel where she is." The words scrape out. "Constantly. Direction, distance—I know exactly how many blocks, exactly which building. I can't turn it off."
Renan's expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. Processing. Recalculating.
"Feel where she is," he repeats.
"There's this pressure." I press my fist against my sternum. Useless gesture. The pressure doesn't care. "Here. Pulling north. Every second. I've tried ignoring it, I've tried focusing on something else—it doesn't matter. She's there and I know she's there and I can't stop knowing."
"Huh."
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to say huh again. With implications."
"The implications are free. I provide them as a service."
I turn back to the maps. Arkenhold's layout, marked with every entrance to Coin's territory I've catalogued over the years. Service tunnels. Drainage access. The old wine cellar that connects to the catacombs beneath the merchant district.
Seven blocks. I trace the route with my finger. Then another. Then a third.
"You're planning something," Renan says quietly.
"I'm always planning something."
"More violent than usual."
The pull shifts. Sharpens.
My hand stops on the map.
Something's wrong.
I don't know how I—no, I do know. Something in the quality of it, the pressure beneath my ribs going from constant to urgent, from dull ache to—
My throat closes.
Can't breathe. Can't—there's nothing there, my hand goes to my neck and there's nothing fucking there but I can't get air, can't—
Someone has their hand on her throat.
I know it the way I know my own name. Phantom fingers digging into my windpipe, pressure building, and underneath the panic there's another heartbeat drumming against mine. Fast. Terrified. Skipping wrong.
"Koshin." Renan's voice, somewhere far away. "What—"
I jerk sideways. My hip hits the table. Something crashes—glass shattering—but I can barely hear it through the roaring and the pressure that won't stop. She can't breathe. I can feel her pulse struggling against the grip.
He's lifting her. Whoever it is. Her feet leaving the ground—I feel the weight shift, gravity pulling at a body that isn't mine.
"Let go." The words come out of my mouth. Ragged. Stupid—she can't hear me, no one can hear me, but I'm saying it anyway. "Let her go, let her—"
The pressure builds. My vision goes dark at the edges.
Iowyn. Hold on. Just—
It stops.
The hand releases. Air floods my lungs and my knees hit the stone floor before I can catch myself. Everything is too loud. Too bright. The hub snaps back into focus: Venn frozen at his desk, Sira half-risen from her chair, Kade in the doorway with blood still on his hands from the informant.
Renan crouches in front of me. His face is calm, but his eyes are doing something I don't have time to read.
"What was that."
I can still feel her. The relief flooding through her body. The ache in her throat. Her heartbeat coming down from terror, slower now, evening out.
Bruises forming. I can feel them. Finger-shaped pressure on skin I've never touched.
"Someone strangled her." My voice sounds wrong. Scraped raw. "Picked her up by the throat. Held her until—"
I stop.
Kairis. Has to be. Coin's enforcer handles new tributes personally. Breaks them in. I've heard what he does. I've seen what's left of the ones who survive.
"I'm going to kill him."
Not a threat. Just—fact. Calendar item. Something that's going to happen.
Renan studies my face. Then he stands, extends his hand.
I take it. Let him pull me up.
"Which route," he says.
"Service tunnel. Drainage access near the merchant district. Comes up in their lower kitchens."
"How many?"
"Six. Quiet until we're inside."
"And when we're inside?"
I think about her heartbeat. The way it felt layered over mine—fast and frightened and fighting. The bruises I can feel forming on a throat I've never seen.
"Everyone who touched her dies."
Renan's mouth curves. That sharp, dark grin that means he's been waiting for this.
"I'll get the others." He turns toward the door, pauses. "You know this starts a war."
"I know."
"Coin will retaliate. Faith will have feelings about it. The Concord—"
"Can eat my cock."
"Good." The grin widens.
He leaves. I hear him in the corridor—names I recognize, Discord's best. The ones who move through dark without making noise. The ones who don't hesitate.
The weapons cache is against the far wall. My bone-blade is already at my hip—never take it off—but I add a pistol, two knives, a length of wire. I want options.
The pull hasn't eased. Still constant. But different now—I can feel her breathing. Her heartbeat settling. The ache in her body.
Mine.
Fuck. When did that happen. When did she become—
Doesn't matter. Someone hurt her. Someone put their hands on her throat and lifted her off the ground, and I felt it, and now I'm going to find them and I'm going to take them apart piece by piece until they understand exactly how badly they miscalculated.
Venn clears his throat. "My lord. If anyone asks where you've gone—"
"Tell them the truth." I check the pistol's magazine. Full. "Tell them Discord is visiting Coin."
"And if they ask why?"
The tunnel entrance is in the lower basement. I'm already walking.
"Tell them I felt like it."
Renan meets me with six of Discord's elite. Varn, Malik, the twins, two others whose names I don't care about. Armed. Silent. Ready.
Good.
"What's the line?" Renan asks as we descend into the dark. "How many bodies before you're satisfied?"
"Anyone between me and the north wing."
"That's going to be a lot of people."
"Then they should have posted fewer guards."
The tunnel swallows us. Darkness ahead, darkness behind. The pull guides me forward, steady and constant—six blocks now, then five, the distance shrinking with every step.
I can still feel her heartbeat. Slower now. Steadier. She's probably in the room they gave her, probably lying on whatever bed Coin provides for their valuable property, probably wondering what the fuck just happened to her.
Hold on.
I'm coming.