Daggermouth (The Heart, #1) — Chapter no 17

Chapter Seventeen

You Don’t Get to Say That

Lira’s footsteps echoed through the empty training hall, each scuff of her heel against marble a small echo in the silence. Dawn had barely breached the horizon, painting the tall windows in washes of pale gold that transformed the austere space into something almost beautiful. She preferred the facility like this —vacant, peaceful, hers alone for the precious hour before the Veyra officers arrived to shatter the solitude with their presence. In fact, it was the only time she was allowed in these training rooms—when no one could see her.

Her fingers trailed along the polished wood of the weapon racks as she passed, an unconscious habit born from years of coming here to watch her brothers train. Of course, as a woman, she was never allowed to touch one. “Females have no place training beside men, Lira,” her father had said. “Your place is behind us, ready to be called on when needed. Not beside, never beside.”

The memory collected in her mind as the materials glided across her skin.

Each blade, each staff, each training weapon she was determined to master now.

She would never admit this to anyone, never even say it out loud—but she was envious of the women in the outer rings. That they were trained to protect themselves, that the rebels didn’t let gender keep you from fighting, from leading.

Her mask felt heavier this morning, the rose-gold pressing against her temples with unusual weight. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep—the hours spent pacing her chambers, mind racing with worry for Greyson, for the tenuous peace that hung by threads between them all. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that today, she was delivering a mask that would pull on those threads.

Lira shrugged out of her jacket as she dropped her duffel bag and tossed it to the floor. Her fingers slid through her dark strands as she approached the mat, securing it in a ponytail on the back of her head as she slipped off her shoes. She bounced on the balls of her feet, feeling the slight give of the padded surface.

Her muscles remembered her training with Callum even before her mind directed them, body falling into the familiar stance—feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent. The first breath came deep and centering, drawing oxygen down to her core as Callum had taught her. The second expanded her rib cage, lifting her posture to perfect alignment. The third— “You’re telegraphing your left side.”

Lira spun toward the voice, instinct driving her hand to a nonexistent weapon at her back. Callum leaned against the doorframe casually, arms crossed over his chest, watching her. The copper and gold of his mask caught the dawn light, transforming the metal to living flame.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice emerged sharper than intended, brittle with surprise.

He straightened, pushing off from the doorframe with all the ease of a man who knew exactly what he did to her.

“Good morning to you too, Li.” His tone was infuriating in its warmth.

Her eyes narrowed behind her mask. “You don’t have clearance for this facility.” A statement, not a question. She knew every name on the access list.

Had reviewed it personally after the last security breach. “No badge. No Serel credentials.”

“I have my ways.” His voice carried that hint of mischief that’d always been her undoing. He moved deeper into the room, circling the edge of the mat like a predator assessing territory. “The Veyra security system has… gaps. For those who know where to look.”

“Those gaps get people executed.” She remained in the center of the mat, tracking his movement. He was up to something, he was always up to something. “Why are you really here?”

He paused at the nearest weapon rack, fingers hovering over a training staff before selecting it. The wood twirled between his fingers with no effort. “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

There it was. The old wound, named and reopened in the space of a single sentence. She should have walked out, but her feet were rooted to the mat.

She hated how quickly the tension in the room became a kind of gravity, pulling her and Callum together despite the pain it caused. She hated even more

the part of her that wanted to believe him.

Lira ignored the sensation, focusing instead on the practical concern. “If you’re caught—”

“I won’t be,” he answered softly, stepping onto the mat with the staff held loosely in one hand. “Spar with me?”

Lira hesitated. Time alone with Callum was dangerous—like handling exposed wires with wet hands. Every interaction held the potential for shock, for burn from that current that had never quite stopped flowing between them despite her best efforts to sever the connection.

“One round,” she conceded. “Then you need to leave before you’re caught here.” She could see the smile that formed behind his mask reflecting in his eyes as she moved to select a staff of her own. The wood felt cool against her palm, its weight perfectly balanced.

She took position at the center mat, making him come to her. Callum didn’t hesitate.

They circled each other, two planets caught in a mutual orbit, each calculating the moment of collision. Callum was taller, stronger, but Lira had spent a lifetime compensating for the advantages of men who believed they couldn’t be hurt.

She feinted left; he followed. She swept a leg; he dodged. They moved with the ease of memory, muscle and bone recalling all of their training sessions. His first strike came swift and testing, a simple thrust she parried easily. The wooden staffs clacked together, the sound sharp in the empty hall. She countered with a sweeping low attack that he jumped over with irritating grace, landing lightly on the balls of his feet.

“You’re holding back,” she accused, advancing with a series of rapid strikes that forced him to give ground.

“So are you.” He blocked each blow, the impact traveling up her arms.

“Afraid of getting too close, my love?”

The old nickname stung more than it should have.

My love.

What he used to whisper against her ear in those stolen moments before he crushed any chance for them beneath his heel.

She attacked with renewed intensity, channeling the surge of emotion into physical force. Each strike contained a memory she couldn’t afford to acknowledge—his hands in her hair, his mouth on her throat, the way he’d looked at her when he’d first removed her mask. Like she was a miracle he couldn’t quite believe existed.

Callum matched her tempo, his defense shifting seamlessly to offense as he found the rhythm of her anger.

“You’re angry,” he observed, voice barely strained despite the exertion.

“Good. Use it.”

“I’m not angry,” she panted. “I’m focused.”

His laugh was warm and knowing. “You’ve never been able to lie to me, Li.

Not convincingly.”

The truth of it only fueled her frustration. She feinted high, then dropped low, sweeping her staff at his ankles. He jumped but not quite high enough—the wood caught his heel, unbalancing him. Lira pressed the advantage, closing the distance and striking at his midsection. He blocked, but the force drove him back further.

He caught her staff with his own, locking them together between their bodies. They stood close enough now that she could see the flecks of green in his eyes through the slits in his mask, could feel the heat radiating from his body.

He smiled down at her, pulling her closer by their staffs as his eyes glinted.

“Hi, baby.” His voice had dropped lower, intimate.

Lira wrenched her staff free, tossing it to the side and spinning away, creating distance between them. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a thundering betrayal of her composure. This was exactly why she avoided him as much as she could—the way her body remembered what her mind fought to forget.

Callum followed her lead, tossing his staff to the side, and waited for her next attack. She moved to strike but he caught her arm and spun her, locking her against him. She dropped her weight, rolled and came up with a sweep that almost took his legs.

They moved together like smoke, swirling and dancing against each other.

Each attack flowing into defense, each defense into attack. Every touch, every

brush of skin sent electricity through her. Their bodies remembered each other, muscle memory that even five years couldn’t erase.

They went to the mat hard, her landing on top, thighs bracketing his waist, hands pinning his wrists above his head. Both stayed frozen, both panting. She could feel his heartbeat through every point of contact, could see her own mask reflected in his.

His hands slid free of her grip—she let them, she absolutely let them—and traced up her legs. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers found the curve of her hips, traveled up her sides with a possessiveness that made her breath catch. One hand rose to her face, tucking a strand of hair that had escaped back behind her ear.

The gesture was so soft, so tender, like he’d always been with her—it nearly broke her.

He sat up, keeping an arm around her waist as she straddled him, bringing their faces close enough that their masks almost touched. His hand stayed at her jaw, thumb tracing the edge where her mask met skin.

“I miss you,” he whispered, keeping his eyes locked on hers.

Three words.

Simple in structure, devastating in impact.

Lira felt them each like a punch to her gut, each syllable striking somewhere vital and unguarded. For a dangerous moment, she let herself lean into his touch, let herself remember how perfectly they’d fit together, how completely he’d understood her in ways no one else ever had or likely ever would.

“Don’t.” She forced the word out, hating how weak it sounded. “You don’t get to say that to me anymore.”

His hand stilled against her skin. “Li—”

“No.” She pulled back, rolling away and coming to her feet. She needed space.

She needed distance. “You pushed me away, Callum. You looked me in the eye and told me that what we had meant nothing. That I meant nothing.”

“You know that wasn’t true. You know me well enough to know I never meant a single word of it.” His voice had gone rough around the edges. “You know why I had to say those things.”

“Do I?” She snatched her fallen staff from the mat. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you made a choice. And it wasn’t me.”

Callum rose more slowly, his movements lacking their usual grace. “It wasn’t that simple.”

“It never is with you.” She turned away, returning her staff to the rack with more force than necessary, and willed her voice not to show the emotion exploding in her chest. “Nothing is ever simple with you, Callum. Everything’s a game, a calculation, moves on some board I can’t even see.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” She spun back to face him, her voice finally catching and cracking.

“Was it fair to make me fall in love with you, to let me believe we had a future, then discard me like one of your business arrangements that outlived its usefulness?”

The words seared the air, molten and unforgiving. They were too honest, too raw. Lira regretted them immediately, her chest aching, a scorch of shame at her own unraveling as she watched the way his body stiffened like she’d stabbed him.

She never lost control like this. Never let her emotions dictate her words. But Callum had always been the exception, the fault line, the one who slipped past her barricades and unsettled the most guarded corners of her heart. The one that always found the parts of herself she kept hidden from everyone else.

He took a step toward her, hands open at his sides in a gesture that might have been surrender or supplication. “Lira, please. Let me—”

“I have errands to run.” She cut him off, retreating behind formality like armor. “Thank you for the match.”

Callum flinched at the coldness in her words. “You think I wanted to disappear? That it was easy for me to walk away?”

“You did it anyway.” Her voice was a whisper now, the fight in it gone with only the pain left.

She moved toward her discarded shoes, slipping them back on as she pushed her arms into her jacket and hoisted her duffel bag over her head.

“Please—”

She didn’t let him finish. “I can’t, Callum. My heart can’t.”

He stared back at her for a long moment as her chest heaved against the onslaught. She watched Callum’s throat work as he swallowed, like he was trying to push down the three words she had been waiting five years to hear.

Greyson stood at the kitchen counter, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, the other clutched around his tablet. The morning light cut sharp angles through the apartment windows, catching on the obsidian surface of his mask where it rested beside him. Sleep had eluded him most of the night, his mind caught in an endless loop of sounds he shouldn’t have heard, couldn’t stop hearing. The soft moans from her room. The rustle of sheets.

Slowly he lifted the mug to his lips, and the coffee scalded his tongue. He welcomed the pain, anything to focus on besides the memory of those sounds.

Execution orders filled his screen—names, dates, crimes, all neatly categorized in columns that reduced human lives to data points. He swiped to the next file.

Lucy Teller, age twenty-four. Cardinal resident caught stealing shoes for her younger sister. Parents deceased. Execution scheduled for Thursday. Sister will be relocated to the Boundary clinics. His finger hovered over the approval button, a hesitation that would have been unthinkable months ago.

Just sign it. That’s all you have to do. Sign it, and move on. Don’t think about whether her sister will die without her. Don’t think about anything except following orders.

Routine. He needed routine. The familiar cold detachment of his work might silence the whispers in his head that felt dangerously close to curiosity about the woman sleeping down the hall. His would-be killer, and now, by some cosmic joke, his fucking bride-to-be.

The soft pad of bare feet on marble pulled him from his thoughts. He didn’t look up, kept his eyes fixed on the tablet as if the words there held him captive.

But his body betrayed him, attuned to her presence like a tuning fork to its perfect pitch. The air shifted as she stepped into the kitchen, carrying her scent —something clean but with an edge, like rain on metal. He forced his expression into something neutral.

“Is there coffee?” Her voice was rough with sleep, lower than its usual sharp cadence.

Greyson finally lifted his eyes from the tablet and his carefully constructed mask of indifference shattered.

She stood framed in the hallway entrance, auburn hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, sleep-mussed and wild in a way that made his fingers twitch with the urge to run through it. Her inked and battered legs seemed endless beneath the hem of a black T-shirt that hung to mid-thigh.

His T-shirt.

The same one he’d been looking for yesterday. Something primal and possessive flared in his chest at the sight of her in his clothes before he ruthlessly smothered it.

His eyes traveled up her body without his permission—over the curves the shirt couldn’t quite disguise, the dip of her waist, the graceful line of her throat where fading bruises still marked her skin. When he reached her face, her eyes

were narrowed, watching him watch her.

“What?” she snapped.

Greyson cleared his throat, forcing his gaze back to the tablet. “Nothing,” he said, voice flat. Then, because he truly couldn’t help himself, he added, “Though I wasn’t aware my clothing was communal property.”

Her face blanched, glancing down at the shirt as if seeing it for the first time.

“This is yours?”

“Well, it’s certainly not yours.” He took another sip of coffee, using the mug to hide the quirk of his lips. “And unless there is another person living in this house I didn’t approve of, yes, it’s mine.”

“Chapman brought it,” she said, tugging at the hem with sudden discomfort.

“If I’d known it belonged to you, I’d have set it on fire.”

“I’m sure.” He watched as she crossed to the coffee pot, his shirt riding higher on her thighs with each step. “Try not to burn anything this time.”

“Try not to be such a fucking asshole this early,” she countered, reaching for a mug from the cabinet. “Though I suppose that’s like asking water not to be wet.”

Something about the domesticity of the moment struck him as absurd. The Daggermouth assassin in his kitchen, wearing his clothes, pouring coffee like this was normal. Like he hadn’t stood outside her door last night, hand on the knob, one push away from a colossal mistake.

“You were loud last night.” The words left him without thought.

The regret was immediate.

Her hand froze on the coffee pot, her back going rigid. “What?”

“In your room.” He kept his voice neutral. “The walls are thin.”

She turned slowly, her face a careful blank he couldn’t read. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “My mistake then.”

A flush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks with color as her eyes darted away from his. Confirmation, if he’d needed it. “You’re a fucking creep,” she muttered, turning back to pour her coffee.

“Says the woman who spent half the night moaning loud enough to wake the neighbors.”

“You don’t have any neighbors.” The coffee pot slammed down with enough force to slosh liquid onto the counter. “And at least I know how to satisfy myself,” she hissed. “When was the last time someone touched you for free?”

Annoyance flared in Greyson’s chest. He didn’t have the luxury of romantic attachments. He had opened his mouth to fire back whatever equally cutting barb popped into his head when a sharp knock sounded at the door.

They both snapped their heads toward the sound, bodies tensing in unison.

Greyson’s hand moved automatically to his mask, fingers curling around the cold metal. Their eyes met across the kitchen, a rare moment of unified concern.

No one was expected. No one knew the surveillance had been deactivated.

His father’s men?

Greyson set his mug down slowly, sliding the mask over his face. “Stay here,” he murmured, already turning toward the entryway.

He moved to the door, steps silent, and checked the peephole. The tension drained from his shoulders as he recognized the rose-gold mask on the other side.

“It’s Lira,” he said, unlocking the door and pulling it open.

His sister breezed past him into the apartment, carrying a large bag and radiating that particular energy that always seemed to fill any space she occupied.

She stopped short in the entryway, her eyes taking in the scene before her— Greyson in nothing but sweatpants and a half-zipped jacket, mask hastily donned; Shadera in nothing but his oversized shirt, hair loose around her shoulders.

“Am I interrupting?” Lira asked, her voice rich with implication.

“No,” Greyson answered too quickly. “We were just having coffee.”

“I can see that.” Her gaze swept over them again, lingering on Shadera’s bare legs and his partially dressed state. “Among other things, apparently.”

Shadera shifted her weight, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement only served to emphasize how little she was wearing, the hem of his shirt riding higher on her thighs. Greyson forced his eyes away.

“Lira, this is Shadera Kael, my live-in assassin,” he said, gesturing between them with a casual wave. “The woman I’m now marrying, thanks to your brilliant plan.”

Lira’s mask tilted, the only indication of her raised eyebrow beneath it.

“Charming introduction, Grey. I can see you’re putting real effort into making this arrangement work.”

“Oh, we’re getting along splendidly,” Shadera drawled, leaning against the counter. “He only threatens to kill me every other hour now.”

“An improvement then,” Lira noted dryly. “From every other minute.”

Something like amusement flickered across Shadera’s features before she smoothed it away, replacing it with her default expression of contempt. She took a long sip of her coffee, eyes never leaving Lira over the rim of the mug.

The silence stretched between them, weighted with concealed hostility.

Greyson watched the two women assess each other, calculating weaknesses, measuring strengths—predators recognizing each other across a shared hunting ground.

“So,” Lira finally broke the silence, setting her bag down on the counter, “are we going to address the elephant in the room?”

“Which would be?” Greyson asked, pushing a hand through his hair.

“Greyson Serel,” Lira snapped, turning to face him fully, “you better not be sleeping with a Daggermouth.”

Shadera choked on her coffee, sputtering and coughing as the liquid went down the wrong way. Greyson’s jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.

“Lira.” His voice emerged as a low warning.

“What?” She spread her hands in mock innocence. “It’s a reasonable concern given that you’re both half-dressed at seven in the morning and she’s wearing

your clothes.”

“We are not—” he started.

“I would rather fuck a rabid dog,” Shadera cut in, recovering from her coughing fit. “Actually, I might prefer the dog to your brother, in general.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual, I assure you,” Greyson snapped as his eyes

narrowed on her.

It was too fucking early for this.

Lira looked between them, the tilt of her head suggesting she was less than convinced as Greyson fought the urge to shove her back out the door. “So the shirt is…?”

“Is your whole fucking family this nosey?” Shadera asked before he could answer. “Chapman brought me these clothes. Your father didn’t exactly pack me a suitcase before imprisoning me here. Would you prefer I walk around naked?”

The reminder of how she’d arrived after the prison—beaten, half-conscious, dressed in clothes stiff with blood—settled like a weight in Greyson’s stomach. It wasn’t guilt, exactly. More like the awareness of pain added to his family’s ledger already drowning in red.

Lira’s posture stiffened further, if that was possible. “I would prefer you not be here at all.”

“That makes two of us,” Shadera muttered into her coffee.

Greyson pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache building behind his eyes. This was not how he’d intended to start implementing his plan. He needed Shadera to believe he was sympathetic, needed to build trust, not watch his sister antagonize her.

But something about Lira’s accusation lingered uncomfortably in his mind.

The very suggestion should have been laughable. Sleeping with a Daggermouth —with the woman who’d tried to put a bullet in his head—was beyond absurd.

It was obscene.

Though the way she had sounded— No.

That was a distraction he couldn’t afford. He had a goal. Get close to her, gain her trust, extract information about Brooker’s murder. That was all. The unwanted physical attraction—he winced at the word—the curiosity about her

life before they’d collided—those were weaknesses he needed to master, not indulge.

But even as he lectured himself, his eyes drifted to her. She leaned against his counter like she belonged there, defiant and deadly even in borrowed clothes.

There was something about her that refused to be diminished by circumstance.

A steel core that somehow made her more present, more real than anyone else in the room.

She caught him looking and raised an eyebrow, challenge written in every line of her face. Greyson looked away first, an unexpected concession that unsettled him.

“I assume you didn’t come here just to hurl accusations,” he said to Lira, changing the subject.

“Yes.” Lira’s voice softened slightly, though he could tell she was filing away her suspicions for later examination. “I brought what you asked for and came to discuss other things.”

Greyson caught Shadera’s quick glance in his direction, the subtle shift in her posture from defensive to cautiously curious. He hadn’t told her anything of what was to come, what horrors she was about to be submitted to. One more thing to add to the growing list of conversations they needed to have but were too busy hurling barbs at each other to initiate.

If he was honest, he was dreading it—avoiding it. What she knew of the Heart only scratched the surface. What truly festered beneath the luxury was pure untainted evil that made the public executions look like a kindness.

“What things?” Shadera asked, wariness evident in her tone.

Lira reached into her bag, the movement cautious as if Shadera would pounce on her if she made any sudden movements. Greyson would not put it past her. Lira’s hand reappeared with a box—matte black, unadorned except for a silver clasp. She slid it across the table toward Shadera, who made no move to touch it.

Greyson felt Shadera’s curiosity from across the room, saw the slight tilt of her head as she studied the box. His first olive branch, the first step toward his final goal.

“It’s for you,” he said to Shadera, nodding toward the box. “For today.”

He watched her hesitate, suspicion warring with curiosity in her eyes. The calculation there was familiar—he recognized it. Always assessing threats, weighing risks, looking for traps. What a miserable way to live, a necessary way to survive.

“It’s a present,” Greyson added, his voice softer than he intended.

For a moment, something like vulnerability flickered across her face at his statement. The thought crossed his mind then, as he watched her stare at it, that this could quite possibly be the first gift she had ever received. He didn’t need to live in the Boundary to know they didn’t have the luxury of buying unnecessary items.

Greyson’s stomach knotted, guilt prickling at the back of his neck as he watched her walls slam back into place. Her fingers slid across the counter’s surface as she reached for the box nonchalantly, as if she’d never hesitated at all.

“If whatever is in this box kills me, know I will take you both with me,”

Shadera said, but there was no real venom in it.

Lira made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Please. That would be too easy.”

For the first time since they’d met, Greyson saw the ghost of a genuine smile touch Shadera’s lips. It transformed her face, softened the sharp edges of her beauty into something that made his chest tighten unexpectedly.

No. Absolutely not.

Greyson shoved the feeling aside as she opened the box. Her smile faded into something more complex, as she stared at its contents. He watched her carefully, looking for any crack in her composure, any sign that would help him understand her.

Help you manipulate her, he corrected himself. That was the point, the only point. Not curiosity, not fascination. Just a means to an end.

Shadera finally reached inside, her fingers closing around the contents. When she lifted it out, a small involuntary sound escaped her—not quite a gasp, something softer. In her hands lay a mask unlike any he’d ever seen in the Heart.

The mask was crafted of polished obsidian, so black it seemed to swallow light rather than reflect it. But where traditional Heart masks were elegant, subtle in their symbolism, this was a blatant provocation. It was shaped like a

skull, the eye holes larger than standard, the angles sharp. Silver filigree traced the bone structure adding a hint of delicacy, catching the light when it moved. No Heart elite would ever wear something so deliberately macabre, so openly defiant

of tradition.

It was perfect.

Greyson stepped closer, peering over Shadera’s shoulder at the creation. A small smile formed on his lips as he imagined his father’s face when Shadera appeared at dinner wearing this. The masks of the Heart were meant to erase individuality, to create a uniform society where rank was visible but personality remained subdued. This mask did the opposite—it screamed identity, defiance, rebellion. It declared its wearer dangerous.

His father would hate it. Which made Greyson love it all the more.

The strategic part of his mind calculated the advantages. This was more than aesthetic rebellion—it was psychological warfare. When Shadera appeared at his side wearing a skull mask, the message would be unmistakable. A Daggermouth stood with the Serels, not against them. It would create the exact narrative his father wanted while subverting it through symbolism he would despise—that Shadera still belonged to the Boundary.

Still Shadera said nothing as she turned the mask in her hands.

“It’s what Greyson requested,” Lira started. “He asked me to make something that you would actually want to wear.”

Shadera’s eyes flicked to Greyson with momentary surprise before pulling them back to the mask.

“I designed it myself,” Lira continued. “I thought the skull motif appropriate given your associations. The Daggermouths use a skull symbol, do they not?”

“They do,” Shadera answered quietly.

“That’s what I thought, and it will match the mark—”

“It’s perfect,” Greyson interrupted before Lira could finish, shooting her a stern look.

Shadera still had not seen his mark, another thing she didn’t know about him. She would find out eventually that her mask also resembled his own symbol, but if he was going to get her to wear it, now was not the time for that revelation.

She carefully returned the mask to its box, her movements more relaxed now.

“Thank you. I expected your brother to put a potato sack over my head, so this is an improvement.”

To Greyson’s surprise, Lira laughed—not her practiced social laugh, but a genuine sound that he hadn’t heard in so long. “I suggested the sack, actually.

Grey insisted on something more dignified.”

Shadera’s lips quirked upward, a reluctant amusement breaking through her habitual guardedness. Something shifted in the air between the women—not friendship, nothing so simple, but a momentary acknowledgment of common ground.

“What exactly do you do?” Shadera asked Lira, her posture relaxing fractionally as she leaned back against the counter and tilted her head.

Greyson felt a prickle of warning at the back of his neck. He knew that look, had seen it multiple times in their own interactions. Shadera wasn’t just making conversation, she was gathering intelligence. Before he could intervene, Lira was answering.

“I manage public relations for the Heart,” she said, her voice taking on the practiced cadence she used for official functions. “Specifically, I oversee the media and the narrative regarding the Serel family and Heart governance. I determine what information reaches the Cardinal and Boundary, and how it’s presented.”

“So you’re the one who makes sure everyone in the rings gets a good view when your brother executes their friends on the live stream.” Shadera’s voice had gone flat, the brief moment of camaraderie evaporating.

Greyson stepped forward. “That’s not—”

“No, let me answer this,” Lira interrupted, raising a hand to stop him. She turned, facing Shadera directly. “Yes. I am. I make sure everyone sees exactly what the Heart wants them to see. I craft the stories that keep people compliant, that justify the executions, that maintain the system.” Her voice was steady, unflinching. “I wasn’t born in the Boundary, with the luxury of open rebellion. I wasn’t born in the Cardinal. I was born here, in this prison—make no mistake it is a prison, luxurious as it is—where every step is watched and measured.”

Shadera’s expression remained hard, but she didn’t interrupt. Greyson still moved closer on instinct, preparing for her to attack.

“You think I don’t know what my father is?” Lira continued, something raw breaking through her polished exterior. “You think I don’t understand that the Heart is corrupt, that the system is broken? I’ve known it since I was old enough to recognize the fear in our maids’ eyes.”

She leaned on the counter closer to Shadera, her voice dropping lower.

“I do what I must to survive, just like you. The difference is that my survival doesn’t just depend on my own actions, but on my father’s perception of my loyalty. Do you think I’m safe because of my last name? Because of this?” She tapped a finger against her mask. “I could be on that platform tomorrow if I step out of line—if I speak against him. If I show an ounce of sympathy for the wrong cause.”

Greyson watched this exchange with growing unease. He’d never heard Lira speak so openly about her position, not even to him. There was a naked honesty in her words that made him acutely aware of how much she normally concealed,

even from family.

“Why don’t you—” Shadera began.

“Why don’t I do something about it?” Lira finished for her. “Because I lack the power, the authority, the position. Because I am a woman in a system designed by men to keep power in their hands. Because every time I’ve tried to mitigate suffering, I’ve been reminded of my place.”

Lira reached up and touched her mask, a gesture that seemed unconscious, habitual. “This isn’t just a symbol of status. It’s a muzzle. A constant reminder that my face, my identity, my very existence belongs to the Heart first, to the Serel name second, and to me last.”

The silence that followed felt weighted, heavy with truths that were rarely spoken aloud in the Heart. Greyson held his breath as the two women reassessed each other, calculating where to go from here.

“I don’t like you,” Lira said bluntly to Shadera. “Your people killed my brother. But we share a common enemy, whether you recognize it or not.”

“Your father,” Shadera said, a statement rather than a question.

“Maximus Serel is a monster,” Lira confirmed, and Greyson felt a chill at the simple declaration. “And he’s using all of us as pieces in whatever game he’s playing. So perhaps we can set aside our mutual distaste long enough to ensure we all survive it.”

Silence fell over the kitchen. Shadera studied Lira for a long moment, her expression smooth, unreadable.

“You said there were other things you needed to talk about. What are they?”

Shadera finally asked.

Lira glanced at Greyson, as if gauging his reaction before answering. “The Vow ceremony is in five days; tonight’s dinner is meant to test you. It’s for my father to see how far he can push you before you snap, so he will know your limits publicly. Do not show him anything.” Greyson saw the nervous tick in her jaw before she spoke the next words. “You’re about to step into a world that is crueler than you could ever imagine. Talk to Greyson. Talk to each other. Make sure you understand what to expect so you are not blindsided.”

Shadera’s back straightened. “What do you mean?”

“You two need to talk, really talk.” Lira pushed away from the counter, lifting the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll have appropriate clothing delivered before dinner.” She paused for only a beat, looking to Greyson. “Walk me out, brother?”

Greyson nodded once, escorting Lira toward the door without looking back at Shadera. He waited, biting his tongue until they had stepped outside the door and it closed behind him.

“Why would you say that to her?” he snapped, turning to Lira as they waited for the elevator. “Do you realize how angry she is going to be? And it’s not subtle anger, Li. It’s slice-my-throat-while-I-sleep-and-stab-me-in-the-heart kind of anger.”

Lira didn’t turn to look at him until the elevator doors slid open and she stepped inside. Greyson put his hand on the frame, forcing the doors to stay open until she gave him an answer.

“It doesn’t matter how much I hate her, Grey, she deserves to know what happens to the women here after the Vow, and she needs to hear it coming from

you. If you want her on our side, if you want her to trust us, you have to tell her.

If you don’t, there will be no chance of her ever telling us anything.”

Greyson stared at her for a long moment. He knew she was right. Knew that the truth would be easier to swallow coming from him—but it was a truth he still hadn’t accepted himself. His hand fell from the doors’ pathway, and Lira disappeared behind them as they swept shut. His reflection stared back at him in the glass, and for one breath he considered running.