Page 76 of The First Scar
The word sat heavy in the air between us.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then someone else retrieves the key. Someone less... conflicted," he said. "And you prove what the doubters have been whispering since you arrived—that the dual-marked savior is just a frightened girl who can't stomach the cost of her own potential."
The words landed exactly where he'd aimed them. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
He saw it. Of course he saw it.
"The Watcher's Keep," he said, sliding a folded map across the desk. "Deep Undercity. The key is in the central vault. Jorath guards the only entrance." He stood, smoothing his coat with exacting movements. "You leave at midnight. I suggest you make peace with your decision before then."
He walked past me toward the door, pausing just long enough to add:
"We've all had to kill what we loved to become what we needed to be, Amaria. Consider this your welcome to freedom."
Then he was gone, his footsteps fading down the corridor, leaving me alone with a captured image and a mission that felt like a gift.
A child-hunter. My thumb traced the edge of the image. That stare. That scar like a badge he'd earned breaking families apart.
Perfect.
I'd spent years cleaning up after males like him. Sneaking through back alleys with contraband salves. Holding my breath while Enforcer patrols passed inches from the children I'd hidden. Watching mothers' faces crumble when I told them their sons, their daughters, were already gone.
And this monster—had been the one filling those cages. Decade after decade. Child after child.
Now he was mine.
I shoved the image into my pocket and walked out of that chamber with my pulse steady and my purpose clear.
Kaelen wanted proof I could do what was necessary?
Fine.
I'd bring him proof.
Midnight found me scaling the stronghold's western exit, fingers finding holds in stone I'd memorized days ago.
The city opened to me like a held breath finally released.
I dropped into a crouch on the rooftop's edge, letting the brisk air fill my lungs—clean, and free of forge smoke and too many bodies pressed into too little space. My vision still wavered if I moved too fast. The Veil was bleeding, and my body knew it.
I launched myself into the air.
Rooftop to rooftop. Drainpipe to ledge to the crumbling spine of an abandoned temple. The city's bones knew my weight, and I knew theirs.
Cedar sap coated my gloves as I vaulted a gap, its scent biting and green underneath the ash. Moonlight cut through the gaps between buildings—not a threat out here, but a tool. An old friend.
I felt him before I saw him.
A subtle wrongness in the shadows three rooftops back. A shimmer that didn't quite belong—Maxx's glamour, good but not perfect. Sloppy enough that I was meant to notice. Kaelen's insurance policy, sent to make sure his weapon fired true and didn't grow a conscience mid-swing. Let him watch.
I moved faster, letting the familiar rhythm of the city carry me deeper into the Undercity's festering veins. With every rooftop I cleared, every shadow I slipped through, I let myself think about what waited at the end.
Jorath.
I pictured the face from the image, those hard eyes, that scar bisecting his brow like a badge of honor. I superimposed it over another face—a boy I'd found once in the Eastern Quarter, maybe seven years old, his Shadowmark still fresh and raw on his chest. He'd been hiding in a drainage pipe, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. His mother was already gone. Taken. And the Enforcers were still circling, patient as wolves.
That's what Jorath did, I reminded myself.That's who he was.A hunter who'd spent years dragging children into the dark. Filling the Veil Mines with small, terrified ghosts who'd never see sunlight again.
