“Theirs or ours?”
“Ours.” My fingers curl against his tunic. “Theirs too, if possible. Not all of them chose this. Some were taken young. Transformed before they understood what they were becoming.”
He studies my face. I can see the conflict in his expression—the executioner’s instinct to eliminate all threats warring with something newer. Something that’s grown between us over the past days.
“You’re asking me to spare people who would kill you without hesitation.”
“I’m asking you to let me decide who deserves killing and who deserves a chance.” I hold his gaze. “You trusted me to guide you through this place. Trust me now.”
His hand comes up. Cups my jaw. The gesture is tender in ways that still surprise me—this massive, scarred, blood-soaked man touching me with reverence usually reserved for precious things.
“I trust you.” The words come out rough. Unpolished. More honest for their lack of ornamentation. “Lead us. I’ll follow.”
The assault begins at midday.
I’ve positioned our forces—if you can call twenty freed initiates and one partially transformed Keeper a force—at three key points around the monastery. Cael leads the eastern group, his intimate knowledge of Keeper tactics making him invaluable despite his ongoing transformation. Circe coordinates the southern approach with a handful of initiates who’ve proven capable of following orders without freezing.
She is the first to volunteer for it. When I lay out the plan, she doesn’t wait for an assignment—she looks at the map I’ve drawn from memory and says, simply, “Southern approach. I know the cells on that side. I know which Keepers patrol there.” Then she lifts a short blade from the weapons we’ve gathered and tucks it into her belt without asking permission.
I hadn’t argued. Someone who has survived this place as long as Circe knows how to read a fight before it starts.
The rest stay with me, positioned in the servants’ passages near the main gate.
Zrynok leads no one. He’s a weapon, not a commander. His job is simpler and more brutal: cut through whatever resistance he encounters, draw the Keepers’ attention, create chaos while the rest of us achieve our objectives.
He doesn’t argue with the assignment. Just brushes his lips against my hair before he moves to his position—a gesture that’s becoming habit, a ritual acknowledgment of what exists between us.
He meets my gaze once. Then he’s gone, slipping through the shadows with the silent efficiency of a born killer. I watch him disappear around a corner and force myself to focus on the task at hand.
The Keepers have fortified their position near the main gate. Smart, from a tactical perspective—the gate represents escape for the survivors still trapped in cells, and controlling it gives them leverage. But they’ve made a critical error.
They’re thinking in terms of siege warfare. Holding a position against external assault.
They’ve forgotten that I know every secret passage in this monastery.
“Now.” I give the signal.
Our forces move.
THIRTY-EIGHT
ARWEN
The first Keeper dies without knowing he was in danger.
I guide our group through a passage hidden behind a false wall in the kitchens—a route I discovered five years ago while pretending to collect supplies for my duties. It opens into the courtyard behind the Keepers’ fortified position, placing us at their backs.
The initiate beside me—a young man named Tobias, barely twenty, eyes still hollow from years of conditioning—hesitates when he sees our target. A Keeper standing guard, half-transformed, flowers blooming from the bark-like skin of his shoulders.
“I know him.” Tobias’s voice shakes. “He was—before the transformation—we trained?—”
“He stopped being that person when he chose to become what the Abbot made him.” I keep my voice flat. Clinical. The voice I learned to use when describing horrors I couldn’t afford to feel. “If you can’t do this, stay behind me and don’t make noise.”
Tobias swallows. Steps back.
I move forward.
The knife finds the Keeper’s throat before he can turn, before he can cry out, before he can become the threat I need to eliminate. The wound is clean—one of the few merciful things the cult taught me. If you have to kill, make it quick.
