LOGINNero POV"Nobody has ever done that."Drift was still walking the perimeter. Still counting. Like the number would change if he checked again.It didn't change."Four," he said. "In one night. With his bare hands. From inside the circle.""We know how many there are Drift," Rook said. "We were here.""I'm just saying—""We know what you're saying."Sable wasn't looking at the bodies anymore. He was looking at Nero. Specifically at Nero's hands. His jaw. The particular way he was sitting — not slumped, not exhausted, just still, like a man who had done something in the night and filed it away and moved on."You're not hurt," Sable said."No.""Four of them.""Yes."Sable was quiet for a moment. "Your father couldn't do that."Nero said nothing."Draven was strong," Sable said. "Strong enough. But that—" He gestured at the tree line without finishing the sentence. "That's something else.""Are you letting me out of this circle or are we going to keep discussing my father.""Neither," Dr
Remi POVThe last thing I remembered was the fire.Sitting on that log with one boot off and my ankle out and Mordor saying something from the corner and the warmth of the fire finally — finally — reaching the parts of me that had been cold since yesterday morning. That was it. That was the last thing.So why was I in a bed.A very good bed. Warm in the specific way of something that had been slept in before and knew how to hold heat. Blanket heavy. Pillow actual. Ceiling solid above me with zero structural concerns which at this point felt like a luxury.I stared at it.You fell asleep on the log, Parrot said."Obviously."And then someone moved you."I gathered that, yes."Someone picked you up and carried you in here and put you in this bed and you slept through the entire thing."Parrot—"Like a sack of grain. Completely unconscious. Did not stir once."I will find a way to make your existence difficult."No you won't. Now get up and go be embarrassed in person.I fixed my hair. S
Nero POVShe stood there with her arms wrapped around herself looking at him with an expression that was doing several things at once."How old are you?" she said."Why?""You look young to have his face.""He had me young."She was quiet."It's a waste," she said finally. "That's what I think. Whatever we do with you in the morning — it's a waste." She looked at him, not quite apologetic, not quite not. "But I've got families worth of anger behind me and no other place to put it either.""So you trap a man who wasn't there.""You have his blood.""I have his blood and none of his choices." He looked at her. "There's a difference."She looked at him for a long moment."If the animals don't get you before morning," she said, "I'll give you something useful." She pulled her coat tighter. "Survive till dawn. That's my offer."She went back inside.The fire burned low.The trees moved.Nero sat in the circle in the dark and felt the cold coming in from the mountains and thought about the
Nero POVHe came back to himself slowly.Cold ground. Night air. The sound of people who thought they'd won something.He opened his eyes.A fire. Not close enough to warm him — close enough to see by. Three men sitting around it eating like they hadn't just knocked a man unconscious and dragged him out of a market. A woman standing at the edge of the firelight watching him with her arms crossed.He tried to move.His feet didn't.He looked down.A circle. Wider than the one in the alley. Drawn in the same chalk and powder, the line unbroken all the way around him, and whatever was in it sat in the ground like something old and patient and completely uninterested in his opinion about it.He looked at the woman.She walked toward him. Stopped just outside the line. "Draven's son, of all the things to walk into our settlement.""My name is Nero.""I don't care what your name is."She was younger than he'd expected up close. Sharp-faced. The kind of pretty that knew exactly what it was a
Remi POV"Stop breathing so loud.""I'm not breathing loud," Mordor said. " You're just cold and angry and looking for something to be mad at.""I have plenty to be mad at. Starting with you."The wind came through the gap in the wall again, and I pulled the blanket tighter and it did nothing because it was one blanket and the wall was open, and the cold out here was not the polite indoor cold of the palace in winter. This was the kind of cold that found gaps and pushed through them and sat inside your bones like it had paid rent.I had stuffed my extra clothes into the lowest gap. My socks into another one. I was currently sitting with my boots on inside the cabin because taking them off felt like giving up."It's getting worse."Mordor looked at the wall. At the gap where the corner used to be. At the cold coming through it like it owned the place."Then, Do something.""My hands are tied.""I know your hands are tied." I shoved another piece of fabric into the gap. It stayed for ab
Nero POVThe log did not split.He hit it again.It still didn't split.He looked at the axe. At the log. At the axe again.He'd watched men chop wood his entire life. Every winter. Palace staff, palace grounds, the men who kept the fires going. You raised the axe. You brought it down. The log split. That was it. That was the whole thing.He raised it again and swung harder.The axe buried itself in the wood and stopped.He pulled.Nothing.Pulled harder. The entire log lifted off the stump still attached to the blade and he had to kick it off, which sent it spinning sideways directly into the cabin wall.The wall made a sound he did not like.He turned around.A new crack. Running from the corner down to the floor."...okay," he said.From inside the storage room mordor spoke: "Something fell.""Nothing fell.""Something definitely fell. I heard it.""Go back to sitting.""I was already sitting. That's all there is to do in here." Silence.Nero looked at the collpase.He opened the







