Chapter 10 · Mark's Already on the Kill List

The kill order came at dawn.

Veran didn't open it right away. He sat in the executor's hall with the sealed envelope on the table in front of him, still cold from the courier's satchel. Red wax. The triple-knot seal of the High Council. Those only came down for heresy cases or when someone upstairs wanted a problem gone before anyone else started asking questions.

He'd gotten three of these in his career. The first two had been correct.

"You going to stare at it all morning?" Kael leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. His partner. Ex-partner, technically, since the last job. The one where Kael took a curse-bolt meant for Veran and spent four months relearning how to hold a sword. "Or do I need to open it for you?"

"It's got my name on it."

"Yeah. That's what worries me." Kael pushed off the frame and walked over. He'd gotten thinner. Harder. The kind of hard that came from too many nights wondering why you were still alive when better men weren't. "You know what those seals mean."

"I know."

"Then maybe you tell them no this time."

Veran broke the seal.

The letter inside was short.