Chapter 25
"Faith dies."
Holy fucking shit. He's actually going to do it—right now, with blood still wet on his face and his arm hanging wrong and thirty-eight bodies not even cold yet.
Discord soldiers go still around us, weapons drawn, faces grimy with ash.
Every single one of them waiting for the command that will launch them at Faith's throat.
Koshin's already turning, already issuing orders, his people shifting into formations.
He doesn't seem to notice the gash on his temple or the way his arm is definitely, definitely broken.
And I—Loss of impulse control. That's what they'll put on my headstone.
My feet move.
"Stop."
It comes out loud. Louder than I meant. Koshin's head turns, and so do about forty other heads—soldiers, elites, people who could snap my spine without breaking a sweat.
I didn't think about whether I'm allowed to speak. Didn't think about anything. My mouth opened and the word fell out, and now I'm standing here with forty pairs of eyes on me and nowhere to go but forward.
"Stop." I point at the rubble, at the people still being pulled out, at the medic tent overflowing with bodies. "They need help right now. Your people need help right now, and if you launch an attack on Faith tonight, who's going to—"
I gesture at a woman being carried past on a stretcher. Burns on her arms. One eye swollen shut.
"Her? Who's going to treat her while you're off killing priests?"
Silence. Every single person in this square is looking at me—every Discord elite with their weapons and their scars and their absolute loyalty to the god I just interrupted.
Koshin's face doesn't change. His eyes are still flat, that terrible empty silver, and he could kill me right now. In front of everyone. Put a knife through my throat and no one would stop him.
Hell, they'd probably applaud.
I keep going anyway.
"Stabilize first. Treat the wounded, secure the area, get your people out of the rubble.
Faith will still be there tomorrow. They'll still be there in three days.
But she—" I point at the woman again, being rushed toward the medical tent, "—she might not be.
Not if everyone's gone. Not if your medics are following you into a war instead of doing their jobs. "
My voice cracks on the last word. Exhaustion, probably. Or fear. Or the absolute fucking insanity of what I'm doing right now.
Koshin moves.
Fast. Faster than something that injured should be able to move.
One second he's twenty feet away, the next he's right in front of me—close enough that I can see the blood crusted in his hairline, the ash caught in his eyelashes.
Those white eyes have gone silver at the edges—glowing faintly, wrong in the dim light.
He doesn't speak. Just stands there, looking down at me, his broken arm hanging at his side and his good hand flexing open and closed. His breath is uneven. His jaw is working.
I don't step back.
I don't know why.
My legs have apparently decided that now is the time to develop a spine, which is inconvenient because the rest of me would very much like to be somewhere else.
Seconds pass.
His eyes move over my face—my mouth, my throat, back to my eyes. Reading something. Looking for something.
The whole square holds its breath.
Then, without moving away from me, without breaking eye contact— "Hollow." His voice cuts across the square. "Two hours. I want everyone who matters in the Hollow."
One of the soldiers—a woman with short hair and blood on her cheek—opens her mouth. "Sir—"
"Triage takes priority." Still looking at me. Still close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his skin. "Medical teams stay. Rescue operations continue. No one moves on Faith until I give the order."
Her mouth closes.
Renan, somewhere behind Koshin's left shoulder, catches my eye. He raises one hand, barely visible, and gives me a thumbs up.
"You." Koshin's still in my space, still close enough that I can feel his breath. "You said you have a plan."
I did say that, didn't I.
I don't actually know if it's a plan. I know it's something—a shape of something, built out of the hours I spent learning Discord's operations and the things Renan taught me about how Houses really work.
"I have a better option than open war."
His eyes narrow, just a fraction. "Then you'll be in the Hollow too."
He doesn't move. His good hand comes up—slow, deliberate—and his knuckles drag down my cheek. Brief. Proprietary. His thumb catches on my lower lip for half a second before he pulls away.
"Renan."
"Yeah." Renan's already moving closer.
"Medical tent. Stay with her." Koshin's voice is flat, but his hand is still raised, still hovering near my face like he's forgotten it's there. "She doesn't leave your sight."
"Got it."
Koshin looks at me one more time. Something unreadable moving behind those silver-edged eyes. Then he turns and walks away, and Discord moves around him—parting and reforming, a current of bodies responding to a center of gravity I can't see but everyone else feels.
I stay where I am. Bleeding and filthy and tied to a god who saves children and orders genocide before the dust settles. My cheek is warm where he touched it.
"Iowyn."
Renan's next to me now, looking far too amused for someone standing in a disaster zone.
"Yeah?"
"That was the hottest thing I've ever seen, and I've lived a very long time."
"Fuck off."
"I'm serious. I thought he was going to either kill you or propose. Possibly both." He tilts his head. "You good?"
"Temporary insanity." My hands are shaking. I clock it the way you clock weather. "Did it actually work?"
"Yes." He sounds almost offended by the fact. "Come on. Medical tent. You heard the man."
He grabs my arm and steers me toward the tent. My legs move because they're told to.
The Hollow is tense when we arrive.
Koshin's already at the head of the table, cleaned up somehow—blood wiped from his face, arm in a sling that looks temporary and too tight.
The usual faces fill the room: Discord leadership, the scarred man whose name I still don't know, the silver-haired woman who watched me the first time Koshin dragged me in here.
They're all staring at me again. Different reason this time.
One of them—the scarred man—makes a sound in his throat. "The mortal."
The gunshot is so fast I don't see Koshin draw.
One second the scarred man is sneering, the next he's screaming, clutching his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. The sound echoes off the stone walls. No one moves. No one breathes.
Koshin's gun is already holstered again. Like it never happened.
"Iowyn," he says, voice even, "stopped me from launching an assault that would have killed half our remaining forces."
He pulls out the chair at the head of the table—his chair, the one no one else sits in—and looks at me.
I sit. Because what am I going to do, refuse? After he just shot one of his men for scoffing at me.
Come on, I have some survival instincts.
Koshin stays standing behind me. Close enough that I can feel him there. Renan takes the chair to my left, hands folded on the table.
"Faith's involvement is confirmed." The scarred man speaks first, voice tight with pain but steady.
Apparently deciding not to die on the hill of my presence after already taking a bullet for it.
"Ritual remnants at the blast site. Materials marked with their seal. This was sanctioned. Leadership-level."
"Sanctioned means authority." A woman with silver streaks in her hair. "If we strike now—"
"You'll give them exactly what they want." My mouth moves before my brain signs off. Everyone turns.
Great. Excellent. Keep digging, Iowyn.
"An excuse," well, I’m committed now. "A justification. You attack Faith tonight, and tomorrow every House in the Concord has proof that Discord starts wars over accidents."
"Accidents?" The scarred man's voice goes hard. "They murdered—"
"I know." My throat aches. "I was there.
I pulled bodies out of the rubble. I watched him throw himself under a collapsing building for a woman and her kid.
I know exactly what Faith did. But if you hit back with fire and slaughter, the story stops being about their crime. It becomes about your reaction."
Silence.
"Faith runs on legitimacy. Public trust. They're the House of order, of righteousness, of divine judgment—and their power doesn't come from armies. It comes from belief. People believe Faith speaks truth. People believe Faith acts for the greater good."
The silver-haired woman shifts. "So?"
"So you show them the lie." I lean forward, building this out of the hours I spent learning Discord's operations. "We have the proof—make it public. Let everyone see that the House of righteousness murdered civilians and covered it up. Let their own believers turn on them."
Silence. Longer this time.
"You're suggesting we—what." The scarred man's mouth twists. "Write letters?"
"I'm suggesting you let Faith hang themselves.
" The words are coming from somewhere cold and tired, somewhere that just wants this over.
"They think they're untouchable because they're holy.
Because no one questions the righteous. So make people question.
Make the lie so visible no one can ignore it.
And when Faith's own followers start asking why their priests ordered children blown up—" I stop.
Swallow. "That's when they fall. Not from your blades. From their own rot, exposed."
I can feel Koshin's attention on me. Heavy. Unreadable.
The Discord leaders exchange glances—calculating, reassessing, trying to figure out how a mortal woman showed up days ago and is now sitting in their war council making suggestions about holy warfare.
"Exposure is first." Koshin's voice cuts through. "Their leader dies. That outcome is not negotiable."
Everyone looks at him.