The blade began to press into Kael's chest.
Not a dramatic stab.
Not a quick death.
A slow, obedient push—like a ritual offering the church wanted to savor.
Kael's face didn't contort, but his eyes did.
River-dark. Furious. *Aware.*
He was being made to do this while fully awake.
The High Inquisitor watched with that gentle, patient smile that had sentenced me once already.
"Good," he murmured. "Obedience suits you."
Prince Adrian exhaled like a man relieved to see a monster leashed.
Liora's hands were clasped at her chest, trembling—her favorite costume. Her eyes didn't tremble. They glittered.
My brand pulsed over my heart, hot as a brand-new wound.
And beneath that heat, something else pulsed too—Kael's heartbeat, threaded through mine like a wire pulled tight.
I could feel the moment the Inquisitor pinched his fingers.
I could feel Kael's heart clamp in response, dragged into stillness by someone else's hand.
That was the mechanism.
Not chains.
Not law.
Not even the temple.
It was a covenant that used hearts like handles.
I stared at Kael's sword tip biting into his coat, into skin, into the space above his heart.
If he died here, the empire would eat me alive within hours.
If he lived leashed, he'd become my executioner again.
And if I froze, I deserved the grave I'd already been given once.
I inhaled, shallow, careful of my wound.
Then I moved.
The nearest temple knight grabbed for my arm—too slow.
Because pain had sharpened me into something precise.
I dropped my weight suddenly, letting my knees buckle as if I'd fainted.
The knight lunged to catch me.
His grip shifted.
And in that shift, his elbow opened a gap.
I drove my forehead up into his chin.
Not hard enough to kill.
Hard enough to shock.
His teeth clicked. He staggered back with a strangled sound.
I didn't waste the heartbeat.
I lunged forward into the space between Kael and the Inquisitor like I belonged there.
Kael's sword was still angled toward his own chest.
The High Inquisitor's two fingers were pinched together, holding Kael's heart like a coin.
So I attacked the fingers.
On the floor near my knee, one half of the broken sunburst needle gleamed—Kael had snapped it, and the shard had skittered across the stone like a fallen fang.
I snatched it up.
Black metal, sharp edge, still warm from Kael's hand.
And I slammed it into the High Inquisitor's fingers.
Right into the tender web between thumb and forefinger.
His smile cracked.
His breath hitched.
Blood welled bright and immediate.
His pinched fingers spasmed open.
Kael's body jerked, like a man yanked out of drowning.
The sword tip halted—half an inch from piercing his heart.
Kael sucked in air, harsh and controlled.
His eyes snapped to mine.
I didn't look away.
"Move," I hissed.
Not begging.
Not pleading.
A command.
Kael's jaw clenched.
He wrenched his sword away from his own chest in a single violent motion and pivoted.
The blade didn't swing at the Inquisitor.
It went to the only place that mattered.
Kael slashed—clean, precise—across the Inquisitor's bleeding hand.
Not a killing cut.
A disabling one.
The High Inquisitor's fingers split, blood spraying over white robes and sunburst carvings.
His calm mask dropped for one heartbeat into something ugly.
Rage.
Then it returned, smoother, colder.
Temple knights surged.
Kael moved like the executioner he truly was when no leash held him.
His sword flashed once, twice—steel kissing wrists and knees, disarming without wasting motion. A knight dropped screaming, clutching his hand. Another collapsed as his leg buckled.
Adrian barked, "Seize him!"
Kael's guards weren't here.
Mara wasn't here.
This was Kael alone in a ritual room.
Outnumbered.
But not outclassed.
Kael stepped in, grabbed one knight by the collar, and drove him backward into the wall hard enough to crack stone dust loose. The knight slid down, choking.
The Inquisitor wiped blood from his hand with infuriating calm, eyes never leaving Kael.
"You're spirited," he said mildly. "How refreshing."
My brand pulsed again—hot, warning.
I felt Kael's heartbeat answer it, faster now, sharper.
The tether was still there.
It hadn't vanished.
It had only loosened for a breath.
The Inquisitor's gaze flicked to me—just once—and I felt the invisible fingers close around my heart.
My breath cut off.
My vision narrowed.
Not stopped.
Squeezed.
A reminder: *I still hold you.*
Kael froze mid-step, sensing it through the tether like a knife under his ribs.
His eyes snapped to me.
He didn't say my name.
He didn't have to.
The panic in his gaze was enough.
The High Inquisitor smiled. "There. We're all calm again."
Adrian's lips curled. "Kill them."
"Not yet," the Inquisitor said gently.
He lifted his wounded hand.
Blood dripped from his fingers onto the carved sunbursts in the floor.
And the room responded.
The pale metal in the floor lines flared faintly, as if it drank the blood.
A low hum rose—deeper than the crystal eye, deeper than candle flame.
The purification cell woke like a beast.
Kael's posture shifted, instantly wary.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
The Inquisitor's smile returned, serene. "Correcting the tether."
My stomach dropped.
No.
Not again.
I clutched the shard needle in my fist, knuckles white.
The Inquisitor didn't rush me.
He didn't need to.
He stepped toward the chair in the center and placed his palm on its iron armrest like he was greeting an old friend.
The chair's sunbursts glowed.
The hanging chains above it rattled on their own, clinking like laughter.
My skin crawled.
"Duke Rivenhart," the Inquisitor said softly, "kneel."
Kael didn't move.
The Inquisitor's eyes slid to me.
My heart clenched hard enough that I gagged.
A wet sound tore out of me—half cough, half sob—as blood surged up my throat from the wound Kael had given me earlier.
Kael's body went rigid.
He took one step—
The Inquisitor pinched his fingers with his uninjured hand.
Kael's breath snapped off.
His sword arm locked.
His knees trembled like a man holding himself upright against a storm.
The Inquisitor watched him with mild interest. "You feel it, don't you? She is your leash now."
Adrian's eyes gleamed. "Perfect."
Liora exhaled, almost dreamy. "So romantic."
I wanted to rip her throat out.
Instead, I forced air into my lungs and spoke through the pain, voice raw. "You can't keep control if you bleed."
The Inquisitor turned his head slightly. "Oh?"
I lifted the shard needle, dripping with his blood. "This is your hand, Inquisitor. Not holiness. Your body. Your vein."
His smile thinned. "A clever child. But you misunderstand what you struck."
He held up his cut hand.
Blood dripped.
And as I watched, the dripping blood didn't fall.
It *hung* for a heartbeat, trembling, then slid back toward his palm like it obeyed him.
My stomach rolled.
He smiled again, pleased by my horror.
"Blood obeys the covenant," he said softly. "Not you."
Kael's eyes turned murderous, but his body remained trapped between moving and killing me.
The Inquisitor looked at Adrian. "Prince Adrian."
Adrian stepped forward instantly, eager. "Yes."
The Inquisitor's pale gaze slid to my bare finger, where Kael's black ring had been. "Your bride candidate is inconveniently resilient."
Liora stiffened at the words *bride candidate*, pride flaring.
The Inquisitor didn't care.
He opened his wounded hand and let blood drip into his palm again.
It pooled.
Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he traced a sunburst on the air—larger than before, more intricate.
The lines glowed faintly, like invisible ink made visible by candlelight.
My brand over my heart responded violently.
Heat surged.
My heart stumbled.
Kael's breath hitched in the same instant, as if the air had been punched out of his lungs.
I staggered.
Kael's gaze snapped to me, alarm sharp enough to crack ice.
The Inquisitor smiled with satisfaction.
"There," he murmured. "Now you are properly linked."
Linked.
My blood turned to ice.
Because I felt it.
Not just a tether.
A loop.
My heartbeat… and Kael's.
One rhythm tugging the other.
If I stopped, he would stop.
If he stopped, I would stop.
The High Inquisitor had turned us into a single piece he could move by squeezing either end.
Kael's lips peeled back in a silent snarl.
He tried to step forward anyway.
The Inquisitor pinched his fingers.
Kael froze, shoulders shuddering with forced stillness.
And my heart seized in sympathy, pain ripping through my chest like a hook.
I choked.
The Inquisitor's voice was soft, satisfied. "See? Even your defiance has consequences now."
Adrian smiled, slow and vicious. "So all I have to do is hurt her to control him."
The Inquisitor glanced at him. "Not hurt. Merely… threaten."
He reached into his robe and withdrew a small object.
A sunburst token.
White metal, flat as a coin, etched with the same pattern as the chains.
My stomach dropped.
He held it out to Adrian.
"This," the Inquisitor said gently, "is the tether's key."
Adrian's eyes brightened as he accepted it.
Liora leaned closer, peering, fascinated.
Kael's gaze snapped to the token like it was a dagger aimed at my throat.
"Don't," Kael said, voice low and deadly.
The Inquisitor smiled. "You're in no position to give orders."
He stepped closer to me.
Not rushing.
Never rushing.
He lifted two fingers and tapped the brand over my heart through the torn fabric of my dress.
The touch was light.
My heart clenched so violently I nearly blacked out.
Kael's body jerked too—his own chest reacting as if the squeeze had found him through me.
He made a sound, small and involuntary.
A sound I'd never heard from him before.
Adrian's smile sharpened with delighted cruelty.
The Inquisitor turned to Adrian. "Try it."
My breath caught.
Adrian looked at me.
Not as a woman.
Not as a person.
As a lever.
He pressed his thumb against the sunburst token.
My heart stopped.
Not metaphorically.
Stopped.
A blank beat of nothing.
No rhythm.
No air.
The world tilted, and for one terrifying instant I was back in the execution chamber—stone under my cheek, poison in my throat, darkness closing.
Then my heart slammed back into motion like a kicked door.
I gasped, collapsing to one knee.
Kael staggered too, hand flying to his own chest, breath ripping harshly.
He glared at Adrian with pure murder.
Adrian smiled wider, drunk on the power. "Oh."
Liora let out a small, delighted gasp she tried to cover with a sob. "Adrian…"
Kael's voice came out low and vicious. "If you touch that again—"
The Inquisitor pinched his fingers.
Kael froze.
And my heart clenched hard enough to make me choke on blood again.
The shard needle slipped in my sweaty fist.
I caught it at the last second.
The Inquisitor's voice was gentle. "If he threatens you, Prince Adrian, you press."
Adrian's gaze stayed on Kael, gleaming. "I will."
The Inquisitor turned back to me. "Now. Confession."
My vision swam, but I forced my chin up.
"No," I rasped.
Adrian laughed softly. "Stubborn to the end."
The Inquisitor's smile sharpened. "Not the end. Merely the beginning."
He nodded to the temple knights still standing.
"Take Lord Vale," he said calmly, as if ordering tea. "Bring him here."
My blood turned to ice. "No—!"
A temple knight moved toward the door.
Kael's body tried to follow—instinct, rage, protect—
Adrian pressed the token lightly.
My heart stuttered.
Kael froze mid-step, jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might crack.
He couldn't move without killing me.
And they knew it.
The Inquisitor leaned down slightly, eyes pale and cruelly kind.
"You will sign," he murmured. "You will declare Duke Rivenhart your corrupter. And when you do, the empire will forgive your prince for destroying you."
He straightened, addressing Adrian and Liora now like they were honored guests.
"At sunrise," he said, "we hold a purification tribunal. Witnessed. Recorded. The emperor's council will attend."
Adrian's smile widened. "Excellent."
Liora clasped her hands tighter. "And Seraphina?"
The Inquisitor's gaze drifted over me. "She will be displayed."
Displayed.
My stomach churned.
Kael's eyes met mine—river-dark, controlled, furious.
He didn't apologize.
He didn't soften.
He mouthed one word.
*Live.*
My throat tightened around blood and rage.
Then the Inquisitor gestured toward the chair in the center of the room.
"Strap her," he said softly.
Temple knights stepped toward me.
I tightened my grip on the shard needle.
Kael's body went rigid, fighting against the leash.
Adrian lifted the token, smiling like a man holding a heartbeat in his palm.
And the last thing I saw before the knights' hands closed on my arms was Adrian's thumb lowering again—
ready to press—
as they dragged me toward the chair.