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The blood mark burns.
I'm halfway down the hall when it flares hot enough to make me stumble. My wrist feels like someone's holding a match under the skin. The mark—thin red lines twisting into something that looks like a broken compass—pulses once, twice, then goes steady.
It's pointing left.
Toward the east wing. Toward Dax's room.
I don't think. I just run.
The floorboards creak under my feet. The house is too quiet. Dad's probably still in the archive hall, and Uncle Carr went out an hour ago to check traps. Nobody else is home. Nobody else is going to hear me if I scream.
I shove Dax's door open.
He's on the floor.
There's blood. Too much blood. It's pooling under his side, soaking into the rug Mom used to say was worth more than our combined bounties. Dax is on his stomach, one arm twisted under him, the other reaching toward his bed like he tried to drag himself up and didn't make it.
His enhancement rig is still strapped to his forearm. The crystal node is cracked.
"Dax."
I drop next to him and roll him over. His face is white. His lips are blue. There's a gash across his ribs, deep enough that I can see bone, and the edges are burned black like someone took a heated blade to him.
"Dax, what the hell did you do?"
He doesn't answer. His eyes are half-open but they're not tracking. His chest moves, barely.
The mark on my wrist flares again. This time it hurts so bad I gasp. The lines twist tighter, and I feel it—this pull, like a hook buried under my ribs, dragging me toward him.
The bond.
Oh god. The bond.
I don't know how I know, but I know. He's dying. And if he dies, the bond snaps. And I don't know what happens to me when it snaps, but the way my chest is tightening, the way my lungs feel like they're filling with glass, I don't think I'm going to like it.
"Okay," I say out loud, because talking helps, because if I don't talk I'm going to panic. "Okay. You're not dying. I'm not letting you die. Even though you're a complete asshole and you told everyone my gift was useless yesterday. Remember that? You laughed. You laughed right in my face."
I yank my jacket off and press it against the wound. Blood soaks through in seconds.
"But I'm not useless," I keep going, "because I'm the only one here, and you're going to live because I said so."
His breathing stutters.
I press harder. My hands are shaking. I've done this a hundred times—bandaged cuts, stitched gashes, held pressure while Dad or Uncle Carr worked—but I've never done it alone. I've never done it when the person bleeding out was tied to me by some nightmare bond I don't understand.
The mark burns hotter.
And then I feel it. This pull again, but deeper. Not dragging me toward him. Dragging something out of me.
My blood.
I look down. The mark is open. Not bleeding, exactly, but leaking—thin red threads spilling out of the lines, crawling down my wrist, reaching toward Dax like they've got a mind of their own.
"What—"
They touch his skin.
He convulses.
I almost let go, but the threads wrap around my fingers, lock me in place, and then they sink into the gash. I watch them disappear under his skin, watch the burned edges start to knit, watch his chest hitch and then expand with a real breath.
The pull gets stronger. It's not just blood now. It's something else. Something deeper. I feel his heartbeat. I feel the way his ribs are cracked on the left side. I feel the poison in the wound—some kind of toxin from whatever hit him—and I feel my blood chasing it, burning it out.
And then I feel his gift.
Enhancement. Speed specifically. The way his muscles can flood with energy, the way his nerves can fire three times faster than a normal person's. I feel it like it's mine.
The bond flares white-hot.
I gasp. My vision doubles. For a second I'm seeing through his eyes—blurry, dark, full of pain—and then I'm back in my own head, but I'm different.
I can feel it. The speed. Just a thread of it, but it's there.
Dax drags in a breath. His eyes snap open.
"What—" His voice cracks. He sees me. He sees my hand on his ribs, sees the blood, sees the faint red glow fading from my wrist. "What did you do?"
"I saved your life," I snap. "You're welcome."
He tries to sit up. I shove him back down.
"Don't move. You're still bleeding."
"You—" He's staring at my wrist. At the mark. His face goes from white to gray. "You bonded me."
"You were dying."
"You bonded me."
"Yeah, yesterday, keep up. You were there."
"No." He shoves my hand off. This time he does sit up, even though it makes him hiss through his teeth. "You don't get it. You—" He looks at the wound. It's closed. Not healed, but closed, the edges fused together like I hit him with a medical stapler. "How did you—"
"I don't know."
"That's not how blood-bonds work. You can't just—" He stops. Stares at me. "You took my gift."
It's not a question.
I don't answer.
His jaw tightens. He stands up, sways, catches himself on the bed frame. There's blood all over his shirt. All over the floor. He looks at me like I just stole his wallet and his identity and maybe his future.
"You took my gift," he says again. "I can feel it. It's weaker."
"You were dying," I say again, and this time my voice cracks. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Let me die."
I stare at him.
He means it. I can see it in his face. He would rather have bled out on his bedroom floor than let me save him. Than let me take even a piece of what makes him the golden heir.
The door slams open.
Dad's standing there. He's got a rolled-up poster in one hand and a hammer in the other, and he's looking at Dax, at the blood, at me, at the fading glow on my wrist.
"What happened."
It's not a question. It's a command.
Dax opens his mouth. I cut him off.
"He was dying. The bond pulled me here. I stopped the bleeding."
Dad's eyes drop to my wrist. To the mark. His face does something I've never seen before. Something that looks like fear and anger mixed together, shaken hard, and poured out cold.
"You fed him your blood."
"He was dying," I say for the third time, and I'm so tired of saying it.
Dad doesn't move. He's still staring at my wrist. Then he looks at Dax.
"What cut you."
Dax hesitates. He glances at me. Then back at Dad.
"Training blade," he mutters. "I pushed too hard. The node cracked and fed back."
It's a lie. I know it's a lie. The wound was too clean, too precise. That wasn't feedback. That was a weapon.
Dad knows it too. But he doesn't call it out. He just nods, once, and steps into the room.
He drops the poster on the bed.
It unrolls.
I see the picture first. A woman. Pale skin, dark hair, sharp eyes. She's smiling, but it's the kind of smile that doesn't reach anywhere near warmth. There's a scar across her left cheek. The kind you get from a blade, not an accident.
Then I see the name.
**ERIKA WINN.**
Alias: Ghost.
Wanted for: Murder of House Varn estate family. Conspiracy. Treason. Resisting capture.
Reward: 50,000 marks.
Dead or alive.
The seal at the bottom is black.
I've never seen a black-seal bounty in real life. Only heard about them. Black means priority. Black means don't ask questions. Black means the Guilds want this person gone, and they don't care how messy it gets.
Dad's voice is flat.
"We leave at dawn."
Dax makes a noise. It might be a protest. It might be pain. Dad ignores him.
I'm still staring at the picture.
At the scar.
At the eyes.
"Dad," I say slowly. "Who is she."
He doesn't look at me.
"The job."
"No." I step closer. The mark on my wrist is still warm. Still pulling, but faint now, like it's satisfied. Like it got what it wanted. "Who is she. You know her."
Dad finally meets my eyes.
And for just a second, I see it. The crack in the armor. The thing he's been hiding.
"Her name was Erika," he says quietly. "Your mother called her Eri."
The room goes silent.
Dax is staring. I'm frozen.
Mom's been dead for ten years.
Dad picks up the hammer.
"Pack your med kit," he says. "We're going hunting."