Chapter 24 · The One Who Rings

"Don't move." Kael's hand locked around my wrist before I could pull back from the rune carved into the stone wall.

I froze. The black mark on my palm was burning now, hot enough that I could feel it through the glove I'd torn off two minutes ago. The same mark had just bloomed across the back of his hand like ink spreading through water.

"You triggered it," he said. His voice was flat, controlled, the kind of calm that came right before someone snapped. "The command rune. You knew."

"I didn't trigger anything." I twisted my wrist, but his grip didn't give. "That traitor in your ranks did. I'm just the one it decided to link to."

"Convenient."

"Yeah, real convenient for me to be stuck with a death mark and a guy who already killed me once this week."

His eyes narrowed. The smoke from the burning hall outside was still rolling through the broken doorway, thick enough to sting. Somewhere past the rubble, I could hear Mira shouting orders, boots on stone, the sharp crack of something collapsing.

Kael hadn't let go.

"The rune's a bind," he said. "You know what that means."

I did.