Daggermouth (The Heart, #1) — Chapter no 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I Have a Plan

Morning bruised across the sky—dark purple bleeding into a sickly yellow as Lira woke to find her pain had crystallized into something sharper. Pure, distilled, clarifying anger that settled into her bones like mercury. Heavy and toxic but absolutely necessary.

Her face throbbed with each heartbeat, the gash on her cheek pulling with every small movement. She touched it gingerly, remembering Callum’s lips against the wound, the promise in his voice when he’d sworn revenge. But revenge wasn’t enough anymore. Revenge was reactive, defensive. What she wanted—what she needed —was change.

Her legs swung over the edge of the bed, her feet connecting with the cool marble floor as a heavy breath released itself from her lungs. The contact grounded her, a physical anchor in a world that seemed increasingly untethered from reality.

Callum had left a replacement mask on the bedside table and she stared at it for a long moment, a decision to be made. Here, in this house, she was safe. Safe to own her own face, not hide it away from the world.

For the first time in her adult life, Lira looked away from the mask.

She moved through the guest suite and into the main living area of Callum’s apartment and paused at the threshold.

Two men stood in the kitchen area, their postures alert despite the early hour.

Security guards, part of Callum’s private detail. Their faces were bare, an act of rebellion on Callum’s part. He refused to live by the Heart’s rules in his own home, refused to make his men abide by them. Their eyes widened slightly at the sight of her unmasked features. In unison, they both reached for the masks they’d discarded on the long kitchen table and Lira threw up her hand.

“Please,” she said softly. “You don’t have to hide. Not from me.”

The men glanced at each other before their eyes came back to her, and nodded. She could see the battle in them, trying to force themselves not to focus on her ruined face.

“Ma’am,” the taller of the two said, inclining his head respectfully, “Mr.

Thane asked us to inform you that breakfast is available whenever you’re ready.”

Lira nodded, her hand unconsciously rising to her throat. “Where is he?”

“Downstairs in his office, ma’am,” the guard replied. “He’s in a meeting but should be done shortly.”

“Thank you,” she said, moving toward the breakfast tray laid out on the counter. “I’ll wait for him here.”

The guards dipped their chins and retreated to their posts by the door, giving her space while remaining vigilant. Lira poured herself tea from the waiting pot, letting the familiar ritual settle her thoughts. The fine porcelain cup was warm against her palms, a small comfort in a world increasingly devoid of them.

She carried the cup to the window, looking out over the Heart spread below.

From this height, the city appeared perfect—platinum spires catching the morning light, streets laid out in precise geometric patterns, everything ordered and controlled. The illusion of utopia, maintained at the cost of blood.

More innocent lives would be lost this morning. The media drones circling the platform where her brother stood like a statue behind two bound and kneeling men told her that. The red cord around their wrists, the red ceremony uniforms of the Veyra officers seemed angrier today. The color more accusatory.

She had spent her life standing at windows like this one, looking out at her father’s domain. Crafted press releases that painted the Heart’s brutality as necessary security measures.

Always the dutiful daughter. Always the obedient woman. Always the voice that smoothed over the regime’s crimes for public consumption.

She wouldn’t do it, not anymore.

Something shifted inside her chest, a tectonic movement of emotion that had been building for years. The fear that had been her constant companion since childhood receded, replaced by something hotter, something with teeth.

Rage.

Not the momentary flashes of anger she’d felt before, quickly suppressed beneath layers of training, of fear and self-preservation. This was deeper, more fundamental—a molten core of fury that seemed to burn away the fog she’d lived in for so long.

Lira’s hand tightened around the teacup, her knuckles whitening with the pressure. She watched her own reflection in the window, superimposed over the city below as the execution began. The bruises, the cut, the swelling—visible evidence of what had always been true but carefully hidden.

She was born from violence.

And she had helped maintain the system that enabled it. She was complicit— had always been complicit.

Her skills, her intelligence, her gift for narrative—it had all been used as weapons in her father’s arsenal. Her position gave her access to information, to communication channels always used for his manipulation.

If she had the power to maintain the system, she had the power to undermine it.

Lira set the teacup down on a nearby table, her hand shaking from the decision she had already made. She’d waited her whole life for power to be given to her, to be worthy of it, for permission to use the influence she already

possessed.

No more waiting.

Lira reached for her tablet, another concession to her status—Heart elite were allowed personal communication devices, while lower rings made do with public terminals and limited access. Her fingers moved over the screen, navigating to a contact she’d never used but never deleted.

The call connected after three rings.

“This is unexpected,” a voice answered, cautious but curious.

Lira glanced to the doorway where Callum’s men stood conversing between themselves then took a step closer to the window and lowered her voice.

“I have a plan.”

The heavy iron door had been installed thirty years ago, back when Maximus still believed in the possibility of redemption through suffering.

Now he knew better.

Suffering was not the path to enlightenment—it was simply the most efficient tool for maintaining order. His fingers found the lock’s familiar grooves, the mechanism clicking open as it registered his prints.

The corridor beyond stretched into shadow, lit only by sparse bulbs that created pools of sickly yellow light. This wing of his residence remained unknown to most—even his children believed it held nothing more than storage for old Serel artifacts. The lie had been necessary. Some aspects of governance were too pure, too essential to be diluted by outside observation.

Maximus reached the end of the hall, and descended the stairs with measured steps. His knuckles ached from the impact of Elara’s lesson. She had created weak heirs, useless children. The thought of Lira, of Greyson’s pathetic attempt at rebellion—at his own table—reignited a flare of anger in his chest.

The boy had always been weak, too influenced by feminine sentimentality.

Last night had proven it beyond doubt. Defending that Boundary trash, challenging his father’s authority in front of the women. The corruption ran deeper than Maximus had suspected.

Another lock, another door. This one newer, reinforced with titanium plating. The room beyond had been his father’s design, though Maximus had made improvements over the years. Efficiency was a virtue in all things, particularly in the application of corrective measures.

The scent hit him first—sweat, urine, fear and the metallic tang of blood.

Familiar, comforting in its consistency. Some things never changed, no matter how much the world pretended to evolve.

Elara stood in the center of the room, exactly where he’d left her twelve hours ago.

The metal mask encased her entire head, a masterwork of psychological and physical torment. The weight of it forced her neck forward, muscles straining against the burden. The chain connecting it to the ceiling allowed her to stand, but prevented any relief through sitting or lying down. He observed the spasms

running through her calves and thighs as her legs trembled with the effort of remaining upright.

Her dress—the elegant cream she’d worn to dinner—hung off her body, ripped and bloody. Green and blue bruises mottled her exposed arms, proof of her betrayal and its consequences. One shoulder had dislocated during her lesson in obedience, he could tell by the unnatural angle, the way she held the arm slightly forward.

Maximus circled her slowly, his footsteps heavy on the concrete floor. Each sound made her flinch, minute movements that sent the chain swaying.

Good. Anticipation was half the lesson.

“My poor wife,” he said, letting false sympathy color his tone. The words were ritual, part of the process that had played out hundreds of times over their marriage. “Look what you’ve made me do.”

A sound emerged from within the mask—not quite a sob, not quite a word.

The design muffled everything, reducing communication to its most basic elements. Another efficiency.

He continued his circuit, noting the drying blood in the bed of her nails, at the tips of her fingers where she’d torn at the mask trying to find escape. Such pointless struggle. She knew how this ended. She always knew, yet she persisted in these small rebellions that necessitated correction.

“Thirty-five years,” Maximus mused, stopping directly in front of her.

“Thirty-five years of marriage, and you still haven’t learned your place. Do you know how that reflects on me? The President of New Found Haven, Patriarch of the family, unable to control his own wife?”

The chain rattled as she swayed again, exhaustion making her movements increasingly erratic. He reached out, steadying her with a hand on her dislocated shoulder. She made a sound that might have been a scream if she hadn’t swallowed it.

“I wish you would stop making me punish you,” he continued, maintaining that same conversational tone while applying subtle pressure to the injured joint.

“It’s tedious, frankly. I have more important matters to attend to than repeatedly teaching you the same lessons.”

Women were creatures of emotion, his father had taught him. They lacked the capacity for true logical thought, for understanding the complexities of governance and order. They required firm guidance, clear boundaries, consequences for transgression. Without these things, they became chaotic, destructive—like Lira last night, speaking out of turn, questioning his authority.

Like Elara, teaching their daughter she had permission to be bold, an example of speaking out of turn.

The weakness spread through female blood like a disease. He’d seen it in his mother, that soft corruption that had ultimately required her elimination. He saw it in Elara, despite years of careful conditioning. And now in Lira, who’d somehow absorbed these poisonous ideas about equality, about women deserving voices in matters beyond their comprehension.

Elara was supposed to be one of the good ones. Maximus’s father had vetted her bloodline before they agreed to their Vow. All obedient. All submissive. All women that knew exactly where their place was—kneeling at the feet of men.

His wife was the rotten apple.

“Do you remember your place now?” he asked, releasing her shoulder to resume his slow patrol around her trembling form. “Or shall we continue this lesson?”

The response was immediate—a frantic nodding that sent the chain into wild motion. Her legs buckled slightly, knees bending before she forced them straight again. The chain would hang her if she fell too far.

“Words, Elara. Use your words.”

The sounds that emerged were barely human, distorted by the mask’s interior design. But he’d had decades to learn this particular language of suffering. “Yes,” she was saying. “Yes, yes, please.”

“Yes, what?” He stopped behind her, close enough that she could feel his presence but not see him even if the mask allowed vision. “Be specific.”

More sounds, desperate now. Her whole body shook with the effort of remaining upright, of forcing words through the mask’s confines. “Know… place… know my place…”

“And will you speak out at my table again?”

A violent shake of her head, followed by strangled attempts at, “No, never, never again.”

Maximus considered extending the lesson. There was value in thoroughness, in ensuring the message had truly been absorbed. But he had other matters to attend to—Greyson, the rebellion growing in the rings, the approaching Vow ceremony, the reports from the military base that required his attention.

Efficiency demanded he concluded this particular session.

He produced the key from his inner pocket, taking his time with the motion.

Let her hear it, recognize it, feel that mixture of hope and dread that preceded release. The lock was positioned at the back of the mask and she went rigid as the key made contact, every muscle tensing.

The mechanism released with a soft click.

The mask came away like the jaw of a wild beast and Maximus pulled it from her head as he circled back to see her face.

She looked at him for one moment—just one—and he saw it there. The hatred. Concentrated loathing that no amount of training or punishment seemed to fully extinguish. It flickered and died as survival instincts reasserted themselves, replaced by the blank expression she’d perfected over the years.

Then her legs gave out entirely.

She crumpled to the concrete floor in a heap of torn fabric and damaged flesh, her body folding in on itself like a puppet that had lost its crossbar. Her dislocated shoulder struck first, drawing a scream that she no longer had the strength to suppress.

Maximus stepped back, avoiding the sprawl of her limbs. She lay there gasping, chest heaving with desperate gulps of air. Her hands clawed weakly at the floor, trying to find purchase, trying to push herself up as training demanded. But her body had reached its limits. She could only lie there, shuddering with each breath.

He watched her struggle for a moment, cataloging the damage with detachment. Nothing permanent. Nothing that wouldn’t heal, nothing that would show beneath her clothing. He’d been precise, as always. Another reason for the mask. It was for her own protection really, so her face would remain safe

from her lessons. The bruises would fade, the cuts would close, the shoulder could be reset. By the time of the Vow ceremony, she’d be presentable again.

The perfect wife, the perfect mother to the Heart.

“Miranda,” he called, his voice carrying to the corridor beyond.

The maid appeared within seconds—she’d been waiting, knowing the routine. An older woman, Cardinal-born but elevated to his service through years of perfect obedience.

“Clean her up,” Maximus instructed, turning toward the door. “Reset the shoulder first—she’ll need full mobility for her public appearances and to complete her plans for the Vow ceremony. I want her presentable within twenty- four hours.”

“Yes, President,” Miranda murmured, already moving toward her.

He paused at the threshold, looking back at his wife’s broken form.

“And Elara?” He waited until her eyes focused on him, until he was certain she was listening. “Remember that Lira is at the age where her Vow must be considered. I would hate for her to require similar instruction in wifely duties.”

The threat landed perfectly. He saw it in the way her body tensed, the way her fingers curled into fists around her dirty clothes. Maternal instinct—another weakness, but a useful one when properly leveraged.

Maximus climbed the stairs without hurry, leaving the sounds of Miranda’s ministrations behind. Each step took him further from the necessity below and back toward the refined spaces where the Heart’s business was conducted. The transition was seamless. He’d made it hundreds of times.

Captain Mikel waited in his study, standing at attention despite having waited for over an hour. A good soldier, loyal to the institution rather than the man. The best kind of tool.

“President,” Mikel acknowledged with a crisp nod.

Maximus moved to his desk, settling into the leather chair with a soft sigh.

The exertions of the past twelve hours had been more taxing than expected. Age was beginning to make itself known in small ways—the ache in his knees from standing, the fatigue that came quicker than it once had. But his mind remained sharp, his will unbending.

“Report,” he commanded, reaching for the tablet that held the night’s intelligence summaries.

“The Executioner and the Daggermouth returned to his residence without incident. They appeared to go their separate ways once they entered the residence. The scheduled executions for this morning went smoothly with no

interruptions or hesitations.”

Maximus nodded once.

“Miss Serel was taken to Callum Thane’s residence last night,” Mikel continued. “She remains there as of the last report.”

Greyson choosing to send his sister to the Broker rather than keeping her close was an interesting development. He had never sent her away.

“Double the surveillance on my son’s residence,” Maximus instructed, pulling up the security grid on his tablet. “I want constant monitoring of both of them. Audio, visual, thermal. Full spectrum.”

“Sir, the surveillance in that unit has been experiencing technical difficulties —”

“Then fix it.” The words came out sharp, edged with threat. “I don’t care if you have to replace every camera and microphone in the building. I want eyes on them at all times.”

Mikel inclined his head, making notes on his own device. “Should I assign physical surveillance teams as well?”

“Discreet ones. Nothing that would alert them to our interest.” Maximus leaned back, fingers steepled as he considered the broader implications. “My son is more compromised than I thought. That woman’s influence is… concerning.”

That was an understatement. Last night had shown him how far Greyson had fallen, how deeply the corruption had taken root. Standing against his father, stepping in line of punishment, sending away his sister rather than maintaining family unity. Each action pointed toward a dangerous independence that couldn’t be tolerated.

“There’s also the matter of the Vow ceremony,” Mikel ventured. “Security arrangements need to be finalized with it being broadcast.”

“Triple the usual contingent,” Maximus decided. “And I want marksmen positioned at all elevated points. If the Daggermouth attempts anything during

the ceremony, or anyone makes an attempt to intervene…”

“Understood, sir. Lethal force authorized?”

“No.” Maximus answered immediately. “For anyone else, yes. But not for her.

This public ceremony is to show the rings that the Heart can unify even the worst of them. We cannot risk her execution by us being broadcast.”

The captain made another note, his efficiency a pleasant contrast to Maximus’s useless offspring. This was how things should function—clear hierarchies, immediate obedience, no emotional pollution clouding judgment.

“I’ll be leaving for the military base in the next few hours and will be unavailable until tomorrow morning,” he informed Mikel, already rising from his chair. “There are matters there that require my personal attention. You have

your orders. Do not disappoint me.”

“Never, sir.”

Maximus left his study, his mind already shifting to the next challenge. The military base held other concerns—whispers of dissent among the younger officers, questions about what weapons they were building there and how they would be used that bordered on insubordination. These too would require correction, though a different sort than what he’d administered in the room below his feet.

The Heart demanded order. Order demanded control. And control, ultimately, demanded the willingness to apply whatever force was necessary to maintain it.