CHAPTER 6

“The prisoner has been transferred,” Kieran the head Councillor said, voice smooth as oiled steel. “His hearing will follow the matter of his daughter, whose status now supersedes all other concerns.”

I stared at him. “Supersedes...”

“The Sanctum believes the subject displays signatures consistent with arcane inheritance,” another Councillor cut in, eyes like fish. “We will be testing custody now.”

“Testing...” I laughed, a raw, shocked sound. “You mean branding me like cattle and dragging me into a cellar.”

The head Councillor’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Containment is not punishment, Miss Valery. It is safety.”

“For you,” Damian said.

They finally looked at him, really looked, some with flinches they didn’t hide well. “Chairman Storm,” the head Councillor said, false-polished. “You grace us.”

“I didn’t come for ceremony,” Damian said. He walked forward until he stood a long step in front of me, blocking half the room’s view of my face. “You lit a Sanctum tag in a civilian zone and sent Gammas to take a daughter in front of her pack. You’ve already made your first mistake.”

The fish-eyed Councillor sneered. “Our first—”

Damian’s gaze cut to him and the man’s words dried. “You didn’t invite me,” Damian said. “You didn’t brief me. You invoked a dead article without cause and thought I’d clap from my tower. You forgot the part where I decide what this city bleeds for.”

“You do not decide Council law,” Kieran the head councilor snapped, veneer cracking. “Article Forty-Seven stands. Produce the subject.”

Damian angled his body, a subtle shift that put him squarely between me and their line of sight. “No Sanctum handler touches Aria Valery. If you require examination, you’ll do it under my protection and with my medics. Or you’ll find out whether Forty-Seven can bear the weight of a Chairman’s veto.”

The room’s air went thin, brittle. The gallery murmured. Somewhere high up, a Sanctum cloak rustled.

Kieran’s eyes glinted. “Are you declaring challenge, Chairman?”

“I’m declaring terms.”

He lifted his hand.

The world exploded into motion.

A faint hiss, metal on air. Damian moved before my brain caught up. His arm snapped out, a line of black suit and tendon, and something silver-hot hit his palm with a meaty thunk. He didn’t flinch.

Gasps. A cry. Then I saw it: a slim dart, silver-tipped, buried to the fletching in the meat of his hand. The scent of aconite bloomed sharp and bitter.

My heart stopped. “Damian!”

He pulled the dart free in one smooth motion and let it clatter to the stone. Blood darkened his skin. His eyes, wolf and winter and promise of violence, lifted to the gallery where shadows shifted, guilty and slow.

“No one,” he said, voice low and terribly calm, “fires on her again.”

“Seize the shooter!” Kieran barked, voice cracking, scrambling to turn the moment back in his favor. Guards flooded the stairwell; the crowd seethed with whispers, assassination, aconite, Chairman, blood heir—words colliding like stones.

Damian flexed his fingers once, scattering drops of red to the floor. He turned just enough that I could see the cut of his mouth, half-smile, half-threat.

“Stay behind me, Aria,” he murmured. “If they want you, they take me first.”

Ethan took a step like he might speak. He didn’t. No one did.

Damian stepped into the center of the chamber, bleeding and unbowed, and raised his head to the Council like a wolf scenting the beginning of a hunt.

“Choose,” he told them. “Stand down… or learn whether Forty-Seven can bear the weight of a Chairman’s war.”

The last word rolled through the chamber like thunder.

And somewhere above us, in the Sanctum’s shadowed box, a second silver glint winked into existence, another dart, leveled at my heart.

I didn’t even have time to scream.