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The hall smelled of rust and smoke, the air heavy with the memory of blood.
Kaz Brekker sat on a throne that wasn’t really a throne — a jagged chair of welded iron and salvaged ship parts, built from the scraps of the city he ruled. The torchlight painted his sharp features in gold and shadow, catching on the black sheen of his crow’s-head cane. He held it loosely in one gloved hand, as though bored, though every line of his posture was coiled and precise.
Before him, the thief knelt, wrists bound, head bowed.
“You stole from me.” Kaz’s voice was low, almost conversational, but it cut through the room with the weight of a guillotine.
The thief flinched. “Only a handful of kruge—”
Kaz’s cane tapped once against the floor, silencing him.
“It isn’t about the money,” Kaz said, leaning forward a fraction. His gloved fingers traced the armrest of his throne. “It’s about the message. If you take from me, others will think they can do the same. If that happens…” He let the thought hang in the air, the threat unspoken but palpable.
Two of his men hauled the thief upright. One guard’s hand brushed Kaz’s bare wrist in the process — a glancing touch, accidental — but the effect was immediate.
Pain. White-hot and searing, racing up Kaz’s arm like fire beneath his skin.
He did not let it show.
Kaz’s jaw locked, and he flexed his hand once beneath the table of his mind, forcing the tremor out of it. The guard stepped back, unaware of what he’d just triggered.
“Take him to the pit,” Kaz said, voice cool as the harbor at dawn. “He’ll work until he’s repaid me twice over. Then he can decide whether he wants to leave with both hands intact.”
The thief’s protests echoed off the stone as they dragged him away. The doors slammed shut, and the hall was silent except for the hiss of torches.
Kaz pressed his thumb to the edge of his cane, grounding himself. The pain was fading, but slowly, leaving a faint ringing in his bones. The curse never failed to remind him — you are untouchable. Not because of fear. Because the world itself will not allow it.
He hated it. And he relied on it.
When the doors opened again, it was not a guard who entered, but a scholar: rail-thin, spectacles fogged from the night air, robes spattered with rain. He clutched a rolled map to his chest like a talisman.
“Kaz Brekker,” he said, bowing too deeply. “I bring urgent news.”
Kaz didn’t rise. He didn’t need to. “You have one minute.”
The scholar swallowed hard and stepped closer. “The empire moves against you. Their scouts were seen at the border. If they march, your kingdom will fall within the month.”
Kaz tilted his head, as if mildly intrigued. Inside, his mind was already moving — counting men, weapons, routes of escape.
“And your solution?”
The scholar hesitated. “Break the curse.”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Kaz’s grip on his cane tightened.
“The curse of the Crow’s Mark,” the scholar pressed, encouraged by the lack of immediate dismissal. “It saps your strength, keeps you from your full potential. There are ruins deep in the marshlands — the Temple of Crows. If the ritual there is completed, the curse will shatter. You would be free.”
Free. The word tasted bitter.
Kaz gestured lazily with one gloved hand. “And who would guide me there? You?”
The scholar paled. “No, Brekker. I wouldn’t survive the journey. But there are mercenaries who know the way. Hunters. Blade-dancers.”
Kaz’s mouth curved — not quite a smile. “Then find me one. Someone with more sense than to run at the first shadow.”
The scholar nodded and scurried out, clutching his map as though the parchment itself could protect him.
When the hall was empty again, Kaz stood and leaned heavily on his cane. The pain in his wrist had faded, but the memory of it lingered — like a brand.
Breaking the curse.
He’d spent years building a kingdom where no one could touch him. But what would it be like, if they could?
Kaz Brekker turned toward the darkness at the end of the hall. The iron throne loomed behind him like the open beak of a crow.
“Find me a guide,” he murmured to the empty air. “We’ll see what price freedom demands.”
The rain had begun to fall harder by the time Kaz crossed the hall into the map room. The chamber was lined with battered shelves, half of them scavenged from merchant estates he’d bled dry, the rest stolen outright from the university’s archives. Charts and maps littered the great table in the center, weighed down by glass bottles, brass compasses, and a scattering of kruge.
The scholar stood near the table wringing rainwater from his sleeves, the picture of a man who’d rather be anywhere else. His name was Voskel — thin as a fishing pole, spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of his nose.
Kaz limped inside, the rhythmic tap of his cane sounding louder than the storm outside. He gestured toward the maps. “Show me.”
Voskel flinched, then fumbled to unroll the parchment he’d brought. It was a map of the northern marshlands, faded and annotated in several different hands.
“Here,” Voskel said, pointing to a crooked stretch of ink where the land broke apart into a tangle of rivers and bogs. “The Temple of Crows. Built long before Kerch was even a nation. It was used for sacrificial rites—”
Kaz’s brow rose. “You’re certain this isn’t just a campfire story?”
Voskel adjusted his spectacles nervously. “It’s real. The curse you bear is older than any of us. It was meant to be a prison, a chain to keep something far worse from walking free. But if the ritual is reversed, the curse will break.”
Kaz’s gloved hand rested on the table, his cane in the other. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
Voskel hesitated, then licked his lips. “I’ve been researching this for years, Brekker. If the curse is undone, you would be restored to what you were meant to be.”
Kaz’s gaze sharpened. “And what’s that?”
Voskel swallowed. “A man untouched by pain.”
For a long moment, the room was silent but for the rain tapping at the windows.
Kaz didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “You think that’s what I want?”
Voskel faltered, thrown by the quiet menace in the question. “I think you wouldn’t have survived this long if you didn’t crave something beyond survival. If you were free—”
Kaz cut him off with a sharp rap of his cane against the floor. “Freedom has a cost.”
Voskel nodded quickly, bowing his head. “Yes. But the cost of inaction will be higher. The empire will sweep through your kingdom in a fortnight. You have maybe two hundred fighting men at most. You cannot hold them back like this.”
Kaz leaned over the table, bracing himself with both hands. His gloves creaked as he clenched them into fists, the iron rings at his fingers glinting.
The scholar’s words slid into his mind like knives. He hated that they were true.
Finally, Kaz straightened and turned toward the door. “Find me someone who can guide me there. Not a mercenary who drinks away his courage, not a scout who runs when the shadows start whispering. Someone who doesn’t scare easy.”
Voskel blinked, then nodded, relief plain on his face. “There’s a woman. A blade-dancer. They say she can walk on air, move without sound, disappear in a crowd. If anyone can get you to the temple alive—”
Kaz’s mouth curved into something sharp, something dangerous. “Then she’s exactly who I need.”
He moved toward the door, his cane striking the stone with each step, the sound echoing like a promise.
“Bring her to me,” he said, not looking back. “I want to see if the stories are true.”
The market was loud with life — hawkers shouting prices, children darting between stalls, the air thick with spice and woodsmoke. But when the blade-dancer took the stage, the noise seemed to fall away.
Kaz stood at the edge of the crowd, leaning on his cane.
She moved like water, like smoke, like something that had never known the weight of chains. Bare feet barely kissed the wooden boards before she was airborne again, ribbons of silk twisting around her arms as she spun. Blades gleamed in her hands — not as weapons, but as instruments of art, reflecting torchlight in dangerous arcs.
The crowd gasped when she landed on the balls of her feet in utter silence. She bowed, not for applause but as if the performance itself had been a prayer. Coins clattered into the upturned basket at the edge of the stage.
Kaz waited until the spectators began to drift away before stepping forward.
“Inej Ghafa.”
She stilled, her head turning slightly, dark eyes finding him in an instant. She did not ask how he knew her name.
“You’ve been watching me,” she said. Not a question.
Kaz’s mouth tilted — not quite a smile, but near enough to be unsettling. “I make a habit of knowing who can walk a tightrope between two buildings without falling.”
Her brows lifted. “Is this the part where you offer me money?”
“This is the part where I offer you a choice.”
She jumped lightly down from the stage, barely disturbing the dust when she landed. “I already have work.”
Kaz’s gaze flicked toward the basket of coins. “If you’re happy dancing for pennies until the war rolls over this city, keep at it. Or you can take a job that actually matters.”
Inej crossed her arms. “You mean a job for you. The thief-king who extorts the harbor district and runs a kingdom of cutthroats.”
“Better than the king who sits on a distant throne and does nothing,” Kaz said. “My way, people live.”
“Your way, they live in fear.”
“They live,” he repeated flatly, his cane striking once against the boards. “I’m offering you a way to keep it that way.”
She hesitated. There was something in his eyes — a glint that wasn’t just threat, wasn’t just cold calculation. A spark of something else.
“What kind of job?” she asked finally.
Kaz stepped closer, lowering his voice so the words were for her alone. “I need to reach the Temple of Crows. Someone who can get me there alive.”
Inej’s expression sharpened. “Why?”
“Because if I don’t, this city will burn.”
For a long moment, the two of them simply regarded each other, as though measuring the weight of truth between them.
Finally, Inej shook her head and bent to gather the coins from her basket. “I’m not in the business of saving kings.”
“Good,” Kaz said, turning away. “I’m not asking you to save me. I’m asking you to help me save everyone else.”
That made her pause.
“You have until dawn to decide,” he said over his shoulder. “If you’re interested, meet me at the harbor gates. If not—” He tapped his cane once against the ground. “Stay out of my way.”
And then he was gone, swallowed by the crowd as if he’d never been there.
Inej stood still long after the night market had emptied, the weight of the coins in her hand suddenly feeling heavier.
Dawn came cold and gray, mist rolling off the harbor like smoke from a dying fire.
Kaz waited at the gates, leaning on his cane, every inch the picture of stillness except for the way his thumb tapped against the crow’s head handle — steady, patient, like the beat of a clock. Behind him, two horses shifted restlessly, their tack gleaming with oil, packs already strapped.
He did not look toward the road. He had no need.
He knew the exact moment she arrived.
Her footfalls were quiet, nearly imperceptible, but not to him. Inej Ghafa slipped out of the fog as if it had shaped itself into her figure, her hair pulled back, twin knives strapped at her hips. She carried no more than a small pack over one shoulder.
Kaz allowed his gaze to flick over her once — assessing, weighing — then back to the horizon.
“You’re late.”
“By your clock,” she said, unruffled.
He turned his head slightly. “You decided to come.”
“I decided you might be telling the truth,” Inej said, stepping closer. “If you lied about the temple, if this is just some excuse to line your pockets—”
“You’ll put a knife between my ribs,” Kaz finished for her. “Duly noted.”
She didn’t smile, but there was a glint of amusement in her eyes. “Good. We understand each other.”
He gestured toward the horses. “You ride?”
“I walk better.”
Kaz didn’t argue. Instead, he swung up into the saddle with a practiced ease that belied his limp, adjusting his grip on the reins with gloved hands.
“Keep up,” he said.
Inej’s brows rose. “Is that a challenge?”
“Consider it an invitation.”
She gave him a look that might have been a dare, then set off down the road without another word, her stride long and sure. Kaz clicked his tongue, setting his horse to follow at a measured pace.
For the first hour, they traveled in silence. The city’s edges gave way to open marshland, the air smelling of salt and wet earth. Kaz didn’t speak, and Inej didn’t ask questions. But she was watching him — she could feel it. Every time she glanced back, his pale gaze was on her, calculating, thoughtful.
Finally, she said, “You don’t trust me.”
Kaz tilted his head, as though considering the statement. “Trust is expensive.”
“And you think I might betray you for a higher bid?”
“I think everyone betrays, eventually. The question is when.”
“Optimistic.”
“Realistic,” he corrected.
She studied him for a moment longer, then looked ahead again. “And when’s your turn? When do you betray me?”
Kaz’s mouth curved, that sharp almost-smile again. “You’ll know when you see it coming.”
Despite herself, she huffed a quiet laugh. “I can see why people hate you.”
“That’s not a problem I lose sleep over.”
The sun began to burn through the mist, casting long shadows over the marsh. For a while, the only sound was the splash of their steps through shallow water and the distant cry of gulls.
Eventually, Inej asked, softer this time, “This curse of yours — is it true? Or just another story to make people fear you?”
Kaz didn’t answer immediately. His hands tightened fractionally on the reins, the leather creaking.
“It’s true,” he said at last.
She waited, but he offered nothing more.
“All right,” she said quietly, as though that was enough.
Kaz glanced at her, something unreadable flickering in his expression. Then he urged the horse forward, setting a slightly faster pace.
By the time they reached the causeway, the mist had burned away entirely, leaving the world sharp and bright.
Their quest had begun.
By midday, the ground had turned treacherous. What passed for a road dissolved into little more than a series of half-submerged planks strung across miles of sucking mud. The air was thick with the drone of insects and the tang of brackish water.
Inej moved lightly across the planks, her balance perfect even when the wood bowed beneath her weight. Behind her came the steady, uneven rhythm of Kaz’s progress — cane, boot, cane, boot.
She slowed once to glance over her shoulder. He was steady but slower than he wanted to be; she could tell by the way his jaw was locked, his grip on the cane so tight his knuckles showed white even through the gloves.
“You’re not going to make it at this pace,” she said finally.
“Watch me.”
She raised a brow but said nothing, only continued forward until the planks dipped into a narrow stretch where the water had risen higher than expected. The wood was half-submerged, slick with algae.
Inej tested the first plank and felt it shiver underfoot. “It won’t hold both of us at once,” she called back.
“Then move,” Kaz said, voice clipped.
She did, darting forward, her steps as sure as a cat’s. She reached the next patch of solid ground easily. Turning, she waited.
Kaz set his cane to the first plank and began forward, careful, measured, every step precise. He made it halfway across before the plank shifted with a sharp crack.
Inej’s heart leapt.
Kaz caught himself with the cane, his weight dipping precariously. The plank groaned, threatening to give way entirely.
Without thinking, Inej was moving. She ran back along the planks, light and quick, dropping into a crouch beside him. “Give me your hand.”
“I have it under control,” he said through gritted teeth.
“The plank doesn’t care about your pride,” she shot back. “Do you want to end up waist-deep in swamp water? Because I am not dragging you out.”
For a moment, she thought he’d refuse — stubbornness practically radiated off him. Then, with obvious reluctance, Kaz shifted his cane into his left hand and extended his right.
Inej gripped his wrist, steady as stone. His glove was damp, slick, but she held fast and braced her weight. “On three,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Three,” she counted anyway and pulled.
Kaz moved with her, pushing off the sagging plank just as it cracked fully, sinking into the mire with a wet sound. They stumbled onto the next section together, landing hard enough that Inej’s breath left her in a hiss.
Kaz righted himself almost immediately, his cane clicking sharply against the wood. He jerked his wrist free from her grasp.
“You could have waited,” he said, his voice like broken glass.
“You could have drowned,” she replied, unflinching.
They stared at each other, close enough now that she could see the rain beading on the brim of his hat, the flecks of gold in his pale hazel eyes.
It was Kaz who broke the moment first, turning sharply and continuing forward.
Inej followed, shaking her head. He could pretend all he liked, but she’d seen the tension in his shoulders when the plank had started to go, the flicker of something dangerously close to fear.
The rest of the crossing passed in taut silence, broken only by the creak of wood and the distant cry of marsh birds. When they reached solid ground again, Kaz stopped and leaned briefly on his cane, breath fogging in the damp air.
“Thank you would work,” Inej said mildly, wringing the water from the ends of her sash.
Kaz shot her a look that could have cut glass. “Don’t expect one.”
She smiled faintly. “I wasn’t.”
He turned away, but she caught the smallest twitch of his mouth — not quite a smile, but closer than she’d seen before.
As they resumed walking, the road rising slightly toward a ridge of higher ground, Inej found her thoughts circling back to that moment on the planks. The weight of his wrist in her hand, the heat of him even through the glove — the memory lingered longer than it should have.
Kaz, for his part, said nothing. But his thumb tapped a restless rhythm against the crow’s head of his cane, and he kept glancing toward her when he thought she wouldn’t notice.
Whatever this quest was turning into, it was no longer just about the curse.
They made camp on a patch of high ground overlooking the marshes. The sky was a wash of indigo, the last streaks of sunset bleeding away into stars.
Inej built the fire quickly and cleanly, coaxing the flames to life with careful hands. Kaz sat a little apart, back against a mossy boulder, cane resting beside him. His gloves were off for once, his bare hands turning over the papers Voskel had given him — diagrams of the temple, old inscriptions, fragments of translations.
When the fire caught and began to throw warmth into the night, Inej settled cross-legged on the other side of the flames. She pulled a whetstone from her pack and began to sharpen her knives with practiced strokes.
The rasp of steel on stone was the only sound for a long time.
“You hate sitting still,” Kaz said at last, not looking up from the papers.
Inej glanced up, her expression unreadable. “And you hate being helped.”
That earned her a brief, cutting look. But he didn’t deny it.
“You didn’t have to follow me across the planks,” he said after a moment.
“Yes, I did.”
His brow furrowed.
“You would have gone under,” Inej said simply, returning to her work. “And you know it.”
Kaz didn’t reply. His jaw was tight, his gaze on the fire now instead of the papers.
Inej let the silence stretch before she spoke again, softer this time. “Is that why you wear the gloves? Because of the curse?”
Kaz’s shoulders stiffened.
“It’s not a hard guess,” she said when he didn’t answer. “You flinch when people get too close. You never touch anything skin to skin if you can help it.”
For a long moment, all she heard was the crackle of fire.
Then Kaz said, “It isn’t just the curse.”
Inej’s hands stilled.
“It started before,” he said. “Long before. The curse just… made it permanent.”
She turned the whetstone in her hand, considering that. “Permanent fear?”
“Permanent control,” Kaz corrected. “Fear is a luxury. I learned to cut it out.”
Inej tilted her head. “And yet you were afraid on the planks today.”
His gaze snapped to hers, sharp as glass.
She held it, unflinching. “That wasn’t control. That was survival. There’s a difference.”
Kaz’s jaw worked, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he looked back down at the papers in his lap, his thumb smoothing over the corner of the top page as though he could rub it away.
Inej returned to her knives, the scrape of metal filling the quiet again.
After a while, she asked, “Why risk this quest at all? If the curse keeps you alive, why undo it?”
Kaz didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quieter.
“Because it’s killing me too.”
Inej’s hands slowed, the whetstone pausing mid-stroke.
Kaz looked into the fire as if it might swallow the words again before they could escape. “Every year it takes a little more. A little more feeling. A little more flesh. One day there won’t be anything left to put back together.”
Inej said nothing for a long moment. Then she sheathed her knife. “Then we find the temple.”
He looked up at her then — really looked. There was no pity in her gaze, no softness, only quiet certainty.
“You sound very sure of yourself,” he said.
“Because I am,” Inej replied. “If you mean to survive this, then I’ll see to it that you do.”
Kaz’s mouth curved — not a smile, exactly, but something close enough to be dangerous. “Careful, Wraith. You sound like you’re starting to believe in me.”
“I believe in what needs to be done,” she said, standing to tend the fire.
But when she turned away, the smallest smile ghosted across her face — fleeting, private.
Kaz watched her in silence, the papers forgotten in his lap. For the first time in a long time, he let himself feel the weight of someone else’s faith.
And it did not crush him.
The ridge sloped down into a narrow ravine choked with fog. The air here was cooler, damp, and strangely still. Even the insects had gone quiet.
Kaz didn’t like it.
He slowed his horse, scanning the shadows with a predator’s caution. The cane lay across his saddle, his gloved hand resting on the crow’s head. Beside him, Inej padded silently, steps soft as falling ash.
“You hear that?” she asked.
“I hear nothing,” Kaz said.
“Exactly.”
She slipped ahead of him, vanishing into the mist before he could stop her. Kaz cursed under his breath but didn’t follow — not directly. He dismounted instead, looping the reins over a branch and shifting his weight carefully onto his cane.
The first cry came seconds later.
It was not human.
Shapes surged out of the fog, low and fast — things that looked like men until they moved wrong, their limbs bending too far, their eyes glowing faintly green.
Kaz’s cane was in his hand before the first of them lunged. He swung it in a brutal arc, the iron tip cracking against a skull with a sickening crunch. The creature went down, but two more were already coming.
Then Inej was there, blades flashing silver through the mist. She ducked under one creature’s reaching claws and cut its throat in a single, clean motion. The second turned toward her, but Kaz stepped forward and hooked his cane behind its knee, yanking hard. It toppled backward, and Inej finished it before it could rise.
“Three more!” she shouted, spinning to face the next wave.
Kaz’s mind ran cold calculations — distance, footing, angles — even as his heart thudded in his chest. He struck another creature across the temple, then jammed the cane’s tip into its throat as it went down.
Inej danced between the others like smoke, her knives never missing their mark. She was all motion, all precision — until one of them managed to grab her wrist mid-swing.
Kaz didn’t think.
He crossed the space between them in three limping strides, slammed the handle of his cane into the creature’s jaw, then drove the iron tip through its chest with all his weight. The thing shrieked — high and terrible — and went still.
Inej yanked free, breathing hard, blood on her cheek. For half a second, she just looked at him.
“You’re welcome,” Kaz said, voice low, before turning back toward the mist.
The last creature hesitated at the edge of the clearing. Its glowing eyes flicked between them, then it let out a guttural hiss and slunk back into the fog.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Kaz braced himself on his cane, scanning the treeline for movement. “They weren’t hunting. They were guarding.”
“Guarding what?” Inej asked, wiping her blade clean on the grass.
Kaz’s gaze swept over the fogged ravine ahead, his pulse still hammering. “The temple.”
They stood there for a moment, breathing hard, blood steaming faintly in the cool air.
Then Inej laughed — a short, breathless sound that startled him enough to make him glance her way.
“What’s funny?” he demanded.
“You fight like a man who has something to prove,” she said, sliding her knives back into their sheaths.
“I fight like a man who intends to live.”
She tilted her head, a small smile curving her mouth. “That too.”
Kaz didn’t smile back, but something in his chest loosened. She had moved like death itself and yet had trusted him to have her back — not hesitating, not second-guessing.
It had been a long time since anyone had done that.
“Come on,” he said, retrieving the horse. “We move before more of them come.”
Inej fell into step beside him, the smile fading but the glint still in her dark eyes.
“Next time,” she said, “you let me go first.”
Kaz’s mouth curved, sharp as a knife. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
But he didn’t argue.
By nightfall, the mist had thickened again, clinging to the ground like smoke. The trees thinned until they opened into a clearing, and there — half-hidden by vines and shadows — stood the Temple of Crows.
It was older than the city itself, its stones black with moss, its towers broken like jagged teeth against the sky. Crows perched on the highest ledges, silent and watchful.
Inej stopped just beyond the tree line, her hand going automatically to the hilt of a knife. “It looks abandoned.”
Kaz studied the structure, his expression unreadable. “Abandoned places don’t get guards like the ones we just killed.”
A shiver ran down her spine. She forced her hand away from her blade and crossed her arms instead. “So this is it. The place that’s supposed to save you.”
Kaz’s gloved thumb tapped once against the crow’s head of his cane. “If the ritual works.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
He glanced at her.
“If it doesn’t,” Inej pressed, “what happens? Do we unleash something worse? Voskel never said what the temple was keeping locked away.”
Kaz’s mouth curved, sharp but humorless. “Would you have come if you knew?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
That made him pause.
“I didn’t take this job to guard your throne,” Inej continued. “Or your pride. I came because you said the city would burn if we didn’t. If I’m risking my life, I need to know what we’re saving it from.”
For a long moment, Kaz didn’t answer. The wind shifted, carrying the smell of wet stone and something faintly metallic — like blood.
Finally, he said, “The curse was forged to bind a revenant. A spirit that couldn’t be killed, only contained. Its hunger is what feeds the curse. The longer it stays locked away, the more it eats.”
Inej’s brows drew together. “Eats what?”
Kaz’s gaze flicked toward her, pale and cutting. “Us. Piece by piece. That’s why Voskel’s wrong — if we do nothing, the city burns anyway. Just slower.”
The clearing felt suddenly smaller, the air tighter in her lungs.
“And if the ritual frees the revenant instead of killing it?” she asked quietly.
Kaz’s grip tightened on his cane. “Then we find a way to put it down for good.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I sound prepared,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
Inej studied him. The firelight from their small camp painted his face in sharp relief — the high planes of his cheekbones, the hard set of his jaw. He looked like a man already standing on the edge of a fight he had no intention of losing.
“You’d fight a god if you had to,” she said softly.
Kaz’s mouth curved, that dangerous almost-smile. “Gods bleed too.”
She didn’t argue. She just turned away and began unpacking her bedroll, her movements precise, controlled.
They ate in silence — dry rations, nothing hot. The temple loomed over them, its dark shape a weight on the night.
When the meal was done, Inej sat cross-legged, sharpening one of her knives. The sound was steady, rhythmic, grounding her.
Kaz remained where he was, back against a tree, the papers from Voskel spread across his knee. But he wasn’t reading them.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said suddenly, without looking up.
Inej blinked. “Excuse me?”
“This isn’t your fight,” Kaz said. “If I go in there and don’t come out, the city will still need someone to lead them out of the fire. That could be you.”
She set the knife down carefully. “You don’t get to decide what my fight is.”
Kaz finally met her gaze, and for a heartbeat, neither of them looked away.
“You saved me on the planks,” he said quietly. “And in the ravine. I don’t want you dying here because of me.”
Something in her chest twisted at the raw honesty in his voice.
“I’m not here because of you,” she said. “I’m here because this matters. Because if we win, maybe there’s a city left to save.”
Kaz’s expression softened, just barely. “You’re a fool.”
“Maybe,” she said, a faint smile curving her mouth. “But at least I’m not a coward.”
His brows rose.
“You hide behind that demeanor, that reputation,” Inej said. “But you’re still afraid. You’ve just buried it so deep you think no one can see it.”
For a moment, she thought he’d snap at her. Instead, he laughed — short, sharp, surprised.
“Tomorrow,” he said, folding the papers and tucking them away. “We go inside.”
And for the first time since they’d set out, she heard something like anticipation in his voice.
The temple’s great doors groaned as Kaz leaned his weight against them, the crow’s head of his cane braced against the stone floor. Inej slipped through first, blade in hand, her shadowed silhouette melting into the darkness beyond.
Inside, the air was cold and wet, thick with the smell of earth and rust. Their lantern light illuminated rows of cracked columns and walls carved with a thousand crow sigils, each one gleaming faintly as though wet.
“This place doesn’t like us,” Inej murmured.
Kaz stepped in after her, his cane tapping softly on the stone. “Good. Means we’re in the right place.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the doors slammed shut behind them.
The sound echoed like thunder.
Inej whirled, knives ready. The room had gone utterly silent. No wind, no sound of night birds outside. Only the hammer of her heart in her ears.
“Kaz.”
“I know,” he said calmly, but she could see the way his jaw tightened.
The ritual chamber lay at the far end of the temple, marked by a wide dais and a sunken pit filled with black water that reflected their lantern light like a perfect mirror.
In the center of the pit was the altar — a flat stone slab carved with spiraling runes.
Kaz crossed to it, pulling the bundle of Voskel’s notes from his coat. His gloved fingers moved with precision as he spread the pages out.
“Keep watch,” he said, not looking at her.
Inej’s knives caught the faint light as she moved in a slow circle, scanning every shadow. The temple seemed to breathe around them, each dark archway yawning wider.
“Kaz,” she said softly, “we’re not alone.”
“I know.”
Something moved near the far wall — a shimmer, a distortion.
Then a figure stepped forward, half-formed, as if cut from smoke and shadow. Its face was blank but its eyes burned like dying coals.
Inej felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “The revenant?”
Kaz’s voice was quiet, focused. “Its echo. The real thing is still bound. This is just a warning.”
The thing took a step forward.
“Then tell it we got the message,” Inej said through her teeth.
She threw her first knife. It struck true — and passed straight through the figure.
The shadow shivered and split, becoming two, then four.
“Kaz!”
“Hold them off,” he said, already cutting his palm with the ritual blade. His voice was steady, precise, as he began speaking the words written on Voskel’s parchment.
Inej moved.
She didn’t waste more knives. Instead, she darted between the apparitions, slashing low and fast, trying to keep them from reaching Kaz. The air grew colder with each strike, her breath fogging.
One of the shadows lunged. She ducked, rolled, came up behind it.
Another one darted past her, heading straight for the altar.
Kaz didn’t stop chanting.
She flung her last knife and pinned the shadow to the stone floor — or what passed for floor — long enough for Kaz’s voice to rise, the final syllables ringing sharp and clear.
The altar flared with light.
The pit boiled, black water turning silver, and the entire temple seemed to shudder as if struck by a giant’s fist.
The shadows shrieked — a sound that wasn’t a sound, that tore straight through her bones. They dissolved into nothingness, leaving only the echo of their scream.
Then the true revenant appeared.
It rose from the pit, towering, a shape of bone and smoke and hunger. Its voice was a whisper and a roar all at once:
YOU DARE.
Inej’s grip tightened on her remaining knife. Kaz, still bleeding from the hand, didn’t flinch.
“Yes,” he said simply.
The revenant struck.
Kaz barely had time to brace before its shadowy claw slammed into the stone where he’d been standing. He rolled, favoring his bad leg, and came up with his cane like a weapon.
“Inej!” he barked.
She was already moving.
They fought together, wordless, an unspoken rhythm guiding them — her knives flashing, his cane striking. Every blow landed with little effect, but each strike kept the revenant just far enough away from the altar.
Kaz’s mind worked like clockwork even as they fought. The ritual was only half-complete.
He caught Inej’s eye. “Distract it!”
She didn’t argue. She sprinted up the side of a fallen pillar and launched herself off it, landing on the revenant’s back. Her blade sank into its neck — if it had a neck — and the creature howled, flinging her across the chamber.
“Inej!”
She hit the stone hard, the air punched out of her lungs. She rolled to her knees just as the revenant turned toward Kaz.
Kaz didn’t hesitate. He pressed his bleeding hand to the altar and finished the final words of the chant.
The runes flared so brightly Inej had to shield her eyes.
The revenant screamed, a sound that rattled the stones, then imploded into the altar, its body turning to ash that dissolved into the air.
Silence.
The glow faded, leaving only the faint drip of water from somewhere deep in the temple.
Kaz stood very still, his shoulders tense, his hand still pressed to the altar. Blood ran down his wrist and dripped onto the stone.
Inej pushed herself to her feet and crossed to him.
“It’s done,” she said softly.
Kaz didn’t move.
“Kaz,” she tried again, gentler this time.
He exhaled, sharp and shaky, and turned toward her. The mask was gone for once — no calculating smirk, no cutting remark. Just exhaustion.
“I thought it wouldn’t work,” he admitted quietly.
Inej’s chest tightened. She reached out before she could think and caught his wrist, pulling his hand away from the altar.
“You did it,” she said.
His gloved hand twitched, as if resisting the contact, but he didn’t pull away.
For a long moment, they stood like that, breathing hard, the temple quiet around them.
Then Kaz said, very softly, “Let’s get out of here before it changes its mind.”
Inej smiled — small, fierce. “Agreed.”
They left the temple together, side by side.
They made camp a mile from the temple, just far enough that the looming black silhouette of it disappeared behind the trees.
The night was still and sharp, the stars pale above them. A small fire crackled between them, throwing gold light across Kaz’s sharp profile as he bound his own palm with a strip of linen. His gloves lay beside him for once, dark with dried blood.
Inej sat cross-legged across the fire, carefully cleaning her knives. The ritual had left a faint ringing in her ears, but her heartbeat had finally slowed.
She glanced at him. “You’re bleeding through that bandage.”
Kaz didn’t look up. “I’ve had worse.”
“I’m sure you have,” she said dryly, “but I’m not letting you bleed out after surviving a revenant.”
He arched a brow.
“Give me your hand,” she said, holding hers out.
For a moment, he didn’t move — and she thought he might refuse. Then, with a quiet sigh, he reached across the fire and placed his hand in hers.
His skin was warm, calloused.
Inej worked quickly, replacing the makeshift wrap with fresh linen, binding it tighter. Her fingers were deft, steady.
“You’re good at this,” Kaz said quietly.
“I’ve had practice.”
His pale eyes flicked up to hers. “Because of me?”
She hesitated. “Sometimes.”
Something unreadable passed over his face — not guilt exactly, but something close.
“I didn’t ask you to follow me,” he said after a beat.
“No,” she agreed. “But you let me.”
The fire popped softly.
“Inej,” Kaz said finally, his voice lower now, “if I’d failed tonight, if the revenant had taken me—”
“It didn’t.”
“But if it had,” he pressed, “what would you have done?”
She tied off the bandage and sat back. “Finished what we started. Even if it killed me.”
Kaz’s mouth curved in something that was not quite a smile. “You really are a fool.”
“Or maybe I just believe in something bigger than myself,” she said.
He studied her across the fire, his expression softening. “You saved me more than once tonight. You didn’t have to.”
“I did,” she said. “Because the city deserved to be saved. And because—” She hesitated, then let the words out on a breath. “Because you deserved a chance to save yourself.”
The silence stretched. The firelight caught in his pale eyes, turning them almost silver.
Kaz leaned back against a tree, his cane within reach but his shoulders unusually relaxed.
“I don’t know what happens next,” he admitted quietly. “Voskel’s notes were clear enough about the ritual, but not about what comes after. Maybe the curse is gone. Maybe it just waits.”
“Then we wait too,” Inej said. “And we prepare.”
Kaz’s brow furrowed. “You’d stay? After everything?”
Inej smiled faintly. “I didn’t walk into that temple just to walk away now.”
His gaze held hers, steady and searching, and for a moment the world went very quiet.
Then he nodded, once. “All right.”
They let the silence stretch again, but it felt different now — not empty, but full, the space between them charged with something that hadn’t been there before.
Eventually, Inej lay back on her bedroll, watching the stars overhead.
“Kaz?” she said softly.
“Hm?”
“You said once that everyone betrays eventually. Do you really believe that?”
Kaz was quiet for a long moment.
“Maybe not everyone,” he said at last.
When she turned her head to look at him, he was already watching her.
For once, there was no wall between them.
And when dawn finally came — pale and gray, washing the world clean — they were still sitting by the fire, side by side.
Not speaking.
Not needing to.