Chapter 10 · The Price of Breaking

"Don't touch the relic." Soren caught my wrist before my fingers reached the black glass seal.

His grip locked around me. Warm. Hard. Too close.

"You brought me here to break it," I snapped.

"I brought you here to keep you alive. Those aren't the same thing."

The old exchange floor shook beneath our boots. Brass debt lines crawled across the tiles, bright as fresh cuts. At the center of the room, the first relic sat inside a ring of iron chairs, its glass body pulsing with red light.

Every pulse matched the mark burned into my palm.

The command inside my blood had been whispering for hours. Now it had teeth.

PURGE IN THREE HOURS.

I squeezed my fist until my nails cut skin. "The civilians in Graymarket don't have three hours."

"They have less than that if you crack the seal wrong."

"And if I do nothing?"

Soren's jaw tightened. "The purge command runs through the first relic. It will take every marked account in the district with it."

"Marked accounts are people."

"I know what they are."

"Do you? Because you keep talking like they're numbers on a ledger."

His eyes went cold.