“Yes.”
“He’s not one of us.”
“He’s the reason I’m alive to stand here.”
“That doesn’t make him family.”
“It makes him necessary,” I snap, louder than I mean to. Heads turn. The men stare. The weight of it presses hard against my skin.
Rizzo steps in closer, voice low enough only I hear. “You trust him, do you? A troll. Flesh-eater. You think he won’t rip you open the second it suits him?”
My hands shake, but I don’t look away. “He’s had chances. He didn’t.”
“And when the hunger takes him?”
“Then I’ll put a bullet through his eye,” I whisper back. My voice is steady. Too steady.
Rizzo studies me a long moment, then exhales sharp through his nose. He doesn’t argue further. But he doesn’t agree either.
The tension doesn’t break. It just lingers, heavy as smoke.
Kragna, still by the wall, hasn’t looked away from me. That slow smile of his remains, unreadable and infuriating.
And as the murmurs swirl, as the men eye me like I’ve lost my mind, I realize something cold in my chest: I didn’t just volunteer him. I claimed him.
And he knows it.
10
KRAGNA
Kyrdonis rises on the horizon like a spider’s fortress spun from black stone. The towers are too thin, too tall, like spears driven up into the sky. Bridges lace between them, webbing across empty air, and banners flutter like torn wings in the wind.
It’s the kind of sight that would awe a human, maybe even humble one. But me? I feel my hackles rise, every instinct clawing against my bones.
It’s beautiful in the way venom can be beautiful—gleaming, intricate, mesmerizing. A thing that demands you stare even as it kills you.
And I hate it. Every inch.
The stench reaches us before the gates do. Not filth—not here. Elves don’t tolerate mess. Their stink is worse. Clean stone scrubbed raw with alchemical sharpness, perfume curling from balconies to mask the blood in the gutters, incense burned not for gods but for power. Slave pens hide down alleys, but the iron tang of them rides the air anyway.
River doesn’t flinch at the smell. She pulls her hood lower, sets her shoulders, and steps into the city flow withouthesitation. She moves like she belongs, like she’s walked these streets a thousand times. Maybe she has.
Me, I don’t belong. I loom. Even with my skin muted to dull stone-gray and my cloak drawn close, I’m a mountain trying to pretend I’m a boulder. I feel eyes catch on me—curious, suspicious, afraid. Whispers brush the air behind my back.
River glances once over her shoulder and shoots me a look sharp as a knife:let me lead.
So I do.
The streets hum like a hive. Cobblestones clatter under hooves, sandals, bare feet. Merchants shout from stalls draped in silks, their wares glittering with gold leaf and cruel edge. I pass a stand with collars on display, some jeweled, some spiked, each a work of art meant to hide the shackle underneath.
Children dart between legs—thin, quick, ears tapering to sharp points. One snatches a purse, vanishes down an alley. The man robbed raises his hand to strike, but the child’s gone, and instead he cuffs another smaller boy standing too close.
I hear the crack of it. My claws flex.
River doesn’t stop. Her pace never breaks, her eyes flicking to every archway, every guard rotation, every alley mouth that yawns too dark. She doesn’t miss a thing.
It costs her. I can see it. The slight tightening in her jaw as we pass a plaza where women kneel, wrists bound, heads bowed for auction. Their chains glint in the torchlight. A crowd gathers, dark elf men shouting bids.
