THIRTEEN DROKHAR
THIRTEEN
DROKHAR
The question hangs in the air. I’ve spent my career being the man with answers—the death warden who knew exactly what to do when the dead stirred, when the graves broke open, when the living needed someone to light the fires that kept them safe.
I don’t have an answer for this.
“I don’t know.”
The admission costs more than she’ll ever understand. I’m not used to uncertainty. Not used to facing a problem I can’t solve with fire and blade. For my entire career, the answer has been the same: burn it, destroy it, leave nothing behind that can come back.
I can’t burn an entity made of grief. I can’t silence a king who feeds on silence.
And I can’t burn her.
“But I know we can’t stop it separately.
” I close the remaining distance between us.
My hand rises before I can stop it, cupping her jaw the way I did before, tilting her face up toward mine.
Her skin is cool against my palm, smudged with ash and dried blood, and the contact sends a jolt through the mark that blurs my vision.
“Whatever is coming—the Gravetide King, the Council’s response, all of it—we face it as allies or we face it dead. ”
Her pulse hammers against my fingers. Her breath has gone shallow, her lips parted, and I can see the moment she stops fighting whatever pull exists between us. Her body sways toward mine, closing the last inches of distance.
Now is not the time. Not when the dead are rising. Not when the wards are failing. Not when the Council will demand her blood the moment we walk through their doors.
Mine.
I force myself to release her jaw. Step back. Put distance between us that feels like tearing flesh from bone.
My hand goes to my belt. To the iron restraints I carry alongside my blade—suppression chains designed to bind practitioners whose magic is too dangerous to leave unchecked.
I’ve used them on witches before. Dragged them to the Judgment Pyre with their hands bound, their magic silenced, their fate sealed before they ever stood before the Council.
This time is different.
The mark flares hot enough to make me grit my teeth as my fingers close around the cold metal. A warning. A protest. Every instinct screaming at me not to bind her, not to cage her, not to put iron on skin I’d rather be touching for entirely different reasons.
She sees where my hand has gone. Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t run. Doesn’t try to flee. Watches me with eyes that miss nothing.
“By law, I’m required to bind you for transport to the Council chambers.
” I hold up the restraints. Iron bands connected by a short chain, runes carved into every link.
They’ll complete what her earlier depletion started—cut off every trace of death magic that clings to her. They’ll make her helpless.
They’ll also mark her as my prisoner, under my authority, protected by my rank until the Council passes judgment.
“By instinct—” My voice catches. I clear my throat, force the words out. “By instinct, I’m required to protect you until my last breath.”
Her eyes widen. The light beneath her ribs pulses faster, brighter, answering the rhythm of my own mark.
“I’m going to do both.” I step toward her. Close enough that the heat of our marks creates a charge between us.
Her lips twitch. Not quite a smile, but close.
“That sounds like a terrible plan.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“The Council will see through it.” She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t step back, doesn’t do any of the sensible things a woman should do when a man who burns her kind is holding restraints meant for her wrists.
“High Arbiter Sevik has been looking for an excuse to burn witches since before I was born. If he suspects for even a moment that you’ve been compromised—”
“Then he suspects.” I reach for her wrists, close my fingers around the delicate bones.
Her pulse jumps at the contact—I can feel it racing against my palm.
“The Council can make their demands. They can threaten my position, my freedom, my life.” I meet her eyes.
Hold them. “But they cannot make me burn you.”
She stares up at me. Her breath comes faster now, shallow and unsteady. I can see the question forming on her lips before she speaks it.
“Why?” The word is barely audible. “You’ve burned dozens of witches. Hundreds, maybe. You’ve spent your career enforcing the law that says I should die. Why am I different?”
Because the mark says so.
Because your presence calms the screaming that’s been building in my head since the crypts.
Because you’re the first person in two decades who has made me want to listen to the dead instead of silencing them.
Because when I look at you, I don’t see a future corpse. I see a future I never let myself imagine.
I don’t say any of it. Can’t find the words. Instead, I let my thumb trace across the inside of her wrist—feeling the rabbit-quick beat of her heart, the heat of her skin, the fine tremor that runs through her at my touch.
“Do you trust me?”
She doesn’t hesitate.
“No.”
But she raises her wrists anyway, offering them for the iron.
The restraints close around her skin with a click that echoes off the burned walls. The runes flare blue-white as they activate, casting sharp shadows across her face. She gasps—a small sound, quickly swallowed—and her eyes go wide.
“The dead.” Her voice strains. “I can’t hear them at all now. Not even a whisper. It’s—”
“Completely silent.” I finish for her, watching her face. Watching the disorientation land as she adjusts to a world without the voices she’s heard since childhood. “The suppression chains cut off everything. No death magic. No spirits. Nothing but the living.”
She blinks rapidly. Takes a breath. Steadies herself with a visible effort of will that twists in my gut.
“I’ve never—” She stops. Tries again. “Since I was eight years old. They’ve always been there. Pressing at the edges. Begging to be heard.” Her voice drops. “And now there’s nothing.”
For a woman who speaks for the dead, the silence must be devastating. The equivalent of going blind, or deaf, or losing a sense she didn’t know she could lose.
I reach for her bound hands. Wrap my fingers around hers, feeling the cold of the chains, the heat of her skin beneath. The contact seems to steady her—her breathing evens out, her shoulders unclench, the panic in her eyes fades to determination.
“It’s temporary.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Once we’re through the Council chambers, once I have a real plan—”
“Once you have a plan.” A ghost of her earlier spirit surfaces through the exhaustion. “You admitted you don’t have one.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s all I can offer.”