Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"Sia, honey, open the door."
The voice came again, soft and patient, like she was seven years old and late for breakfast.
Sienna couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. That voice had been dead for fifteen years.
Kael's gun stayed trained on the door. "Who knows that name?"
"No one." Her throat felt like broken glass. "My mother called me that. She's been dead since I was twelve."
"Then that's not your mother."
"I know that." But her legs wouldn't work. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to clench them into fists.
The voice outside shifted, dropped lower. Still her mother's voice, but colder now. "Sienna Hale. Born Sienna Roake. Last surviving daughter of the Roake bloodline. Open the door or I start listing the rest."
Kael glanced back at her. "Roake?"
"Don't." She forced herself to stand. Every muscle screamed. The moonbond was still there, a constant ache under her ribs, but the fear cut through it. "Don't say it out loud."
"Too late." The voice outside laughed, and it sounded exactly like her mother had laughed the morning before the fire. "You think this cabin's soundproof? I've been listening for an hour. Heard everything. The bond. The deal. The way you finally admitted you got it wrong."
Sienna moved toward the door before she realized what she was doing. Kael caught her wrist.
"Don't," he said.
"She knows." Sienna pulled against his grip. "She knows my real name. She knows I'm here. If she wanted me dead she could've burned this place down while we slept."
"Or she wants you to open the door so she doesn't have to."
He was right. She knew he was right. But that voice—
"Sia, I'm not here to hurt you." A pause. "I'm here because Asher Lockwood sent a kill squad to your apartment two hours ago. Your friend Leah's in Mercy Hospital with a punctured lung. You've got about six minutes before the second squad figures out you're not in the city anymore."
Sienna's stomach dropped. "Leah—"
"Is alive. Barely." The voice was losing patience now. "And you will be too if you let me in and listen."
Kael's hand tightened on her wrist. "Could be a bluff."
"Could be." Sienna looked at him. His face was hard, locked down, but his eyes—he was weighing it the same way she was. Trust the voice that sounded like her dead mother, or wait and find out if Leah was really dying. "But if it's not—"
"If it's not, we're already blown." He let go of her wrist. Stepped back. Kept the gun up. "Your call, Judge."
She hated that he said it like that. Like she was still the one who'd sentenced him. Like he'd let her choose even now.
Sienna unlocked the door.
The woman on the other side looked nothing like her mother. Tall, mid-forties, dark tactical gear and a rifle slung over one shoulder. Short silver hair. Pale wolf-gold eyes that tracked Kael's gun without flinching.
"Smart," the woman said. "I'm coming in. Don't shoot."
She stepped through the doorway and Kael moved fast, putting himself between her and Sienna. The woman stopped. Raised both hands, slow.
"Kael Thorne," she said. "War hero. Framed for the Kiros village massacre six years ago. Sentenced by the woman you're currently trying to protect." Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. "And fated mate, as of three days ago. That's a bad hand."
"Who are you?" Sienna's voice came out steadier than she felt.
The woman looked past Kael, straight at her. "Mara Voss. Moonsworn Intelligence. Deep cover. I knew your mother."
"Bullshit." But Sienna's chest went tight. "Moonsworn Intelligence doesn't exist."
"It does when the Council Speaker's been running his own kill teams for fifteen years." Mara's eyes didn't leave hers. "Your mother was my partner. We were investigating Asher Lockwood for embezzlement and blackmail. Then your house burned down and she was dead and I got pulled off the case." She lowered her hands slowly. "I've been trying to prove it ever since. You just gave me the last piece."
"What piece?" Kael's gun hadn't moved.
"Her." Mara nodded at Sienna. "He's been hunting Roake survivors since the fire. Killed every one he could find. Except he missed a twelve-year-old girl who forged her way into the judiciary under a dead judge's stolen name." Her smile turned sharp. "That's why he framed you, Thorne. You got too close to the Kiros village site. Found something you shouldn't have."
Sienna's throat closed. "What did he find?"
"Bodies," Kael said quietly. "Thirty-two of them. Buried in a mass grave a mile outside the village. Wrong kind of wounds. Wrong timeline." He was still watching Mara, but his voice was flat, factual. "Someone killed them six months before my unit ever got there. The massacre I got blamed for was a cover-up."
Mara nodded. "Lockwood ordered the original killings. Framed your unit when you found the graves. Paid off the witnesses. Buried the evidence. And when the case landed in front of Judge Hale, he didn't realize she was the same girl whose family he'd burned alive fifteen years earlier."
Sienna felt the floor tilt. "He didn't know."
"Not until a week ago." Mara's voice was quiet now. Careful. "One of his kill teams pulled your sealed records. He found out who you really are. That's when he moved on your clerk."
"Leah." Sienna's hands were numb. "You said she's alive."
"For now. They wanted her to talk. Find out where you went. She didn't." Mara's jaw tightened. "But they'll come here next. Lockwood's got eyes in every pack within two hundred miles. He'll find this cabin by dawn."
Kael finally lowered the gun. "Then we move."
"No." Mara pulled a slim tablet from her vest, tapped it twice, held it out. "You go on record. Both of you. Everything. The frame-up. The fake name. The bond. I get it to the Tribunal vault before Lockwood scrubs the files."
Sienna stared at the tablet. "If I go on record, I lose everything. My seat. My name. My—"
"You're already dead, Hale." Mara's voice was cold now. Flat. "You just don't know it yet. He's not going to stop. Not until you're gone and every record of the Roake bloodline is ashes."
Kael shifted, his shoulder brushing Sienna's. "And if we testify, you can arrest him?"
"If you testify, I can lock the evidence where he can't destroy it. Then—maybe." Mara's eyes were hard. "But only if we move now."
Sienna reached for the tablet. Her hand shook. Kael caught her wrist again, gentle this time.
"You don't have to," he said.
"Yes, I do." She looked up at him. His face was close, too close, and she could feel the bond pulling at her ribs like a hook. "If Leah's in the hospital because of me—"
"She's in the hospital because of him." Kael's hand was warm on her wrist. Steady. "Don't take his kills."
Mara made a low sound. "Touching. But we're out of time." She turned toward the door, froze.
Outside, gravel crunched.
Kael's gun came back up. Mara unslung her rifle in one smooth motion. Sienna's heart stopped.
"Back door," Mara whispered. "Now."
They moved fast. Kael grabbed the files off the table, shoved them into his jacket. Sienna's legs were shaking but she forced them to work. Mara led them through the narrow kitchen, past the cold stove, toward the rear exit.
The front door exploded inward.
Mara spun, fired twice. Someone screamed. Kael shoved Sienna toward the back door, slammed it open. Cold night air hit her face.
"Go," he said.
"Not without—"
"Go."
Mara was still firing. The cabin lit up with muzzle flashes. Sienna ran.
She made it ten feet into the trees before she heard Kael grunt behind her. She turned and he was on the ground, blood spreading dark across his shoulder.
Mara was backing toward them, rifle up, firing in short controlled bursts. "Move, Hale!"
Sienna dropped next to Kael instead. His face was white. Blood pulsed between his fingers where he pressed his hand to the wound.
"Stupid," he said. "You're so stupid."
"Shut up." She got her arm under his shoulders, hauled him upright. He was heavy. Too heavy. The bond screamed in her chest, pain and panic and something else she didn't have time to name.
Mara reached them, grabbed Kael's other arm. Together they dragged him deeper into the trees. Behind them the cabin was burning now, orange light flickering through the branches.
"They'll track us," Kael said. His voice was thin. "Blood trail."
"Then we move fast." Mara's face was grim. "There's a vehicle two miles north. If we—"
Something whistled past Sienna's ear. Mara's head snapped back and she went down, blood spraying.
Sienna's scream caught in her throat. Kael twisted, fired blind into the dark. Someone fired back. A tree exploded six inches from Sienna's face.
"Run," Kael said. He was trying to stand. Couldn't. "Sienna, run."
"No." She got her hands under his arms again, dragged him forward. Her muscles were tearing. The moonbond felt like it was trying to claw out of her chest. "I'm not leaving you."
"You have to—"
"I sentenced you. I put you in that prison." Her voice broke. "I don't get to leave you now."
He stared at her. Blood on his lips. Something in his eyes that looked like it hurt worse than the bullet.
"Judge," he said softly. "You're going to get us both killed."
"Probably." She pulled him to his feet. He leaned on her, dead weight and warm blood soaking through her shirt. "But not tonight."
They moved through the trees. Every step sent fresh blood down his arm. Sienna's legs were shaking. The bond pulled tighter, a live wire in her veins, and she didn't know if it was trying to save him or kill her.
Behind them, footsteps. Voices. Someone shouting coordinates.
Kael's hand found hers in the dark. Squeezed once.
"Mara's jacket," he whispered. "Inside pocket."
"What?"
"She gave me something. Before we ran." His breathing was ragged. "Thumb drive. Tribunal vault marks on it."
Sienna's chest went cold. "Vault marks?"
"Chief-justice access." He stumbled. She caught him. His weight nearly took them both down. "Sienna. It's got your mother's name on it."
She stopped breathing.
"And something else," Kael said. His voice was fading. "Security log. Someone accessed your mother's files three days before the fire."
She already knew. She could hear it in the way he said it. In the silence that followed.
"Asher Lockwood," Kael whispered.
Behind them, a branch snapped. Close. Too close.
Sienna looked down at the blood spreading across Kael's jacket. At the thumb drive in her shaking hand. At the Tribunal vault marks stamped in silver across the casing.
Chief-justice access only.
The same level Asher Lockwood had held for twenty years.