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The blade smells like rust and old blood.
Nessa keeps her eyes on it. Not on the crowd pressed against the execution yard fence. Not on the warden reading her crimes off a scroll like he's bored. Just the blade.
It's supposed to drop in ninety seconds.
She counts them in her head. Eighty-seven. Eighty-six. Her wrists ache where the iron cuffs bite into bone. The sigil she stole is gone now, confiscated, locked up somewhere in the guild's vault. But she can still feel the burn of it under her skin, like it carved itself into her before they ripped it away.
Stupid. She'd known the risk. Knew what happened to black-market breakers who got caught with forbidden marks. But her brother needed that sigil. Needed it to pay off the debt that was going to get him killed.
Now he's missing and she's the one about to die.
Eighty-one.
The warden clears his throat. "Nessa Quill. Theft of a restricted sigil. Unauthorized breaking of a blood seal. Conspiracy against the guild authority of Veyra City."
She doesn't bother listening to the rest. She's heard it three times already. Once at the arrest. Once at the trial that lasted maybe ten minutes. Once this morning when they shoved her into the yard and chained her to the post.
Seventy-four.
Someone in the crowd throws something. It hits the dirt near her feet. An apple core. Real classy.
"Any last words?" The warden sounds like he's asking if she wants fries with that.
Nessa opens her mouth. Closes it. What's she supposed to say? Sorry I got caught? Sorry I didn't run fast enough?
Sorry I trusted the wrong person?
She swallows and shakes her head.
The warden nods to the executioner. Big guy. Arms like tree trunks. He steps up to the lever that's going to drop the blade and wraps one hand around it.
Sixty-eight.
Nessa's heart slams against her ribs. She can't stop counting. Can't stop thinking maybe someone's going to show up and stop this. Her brother. A guild official with a pardon. Anyone.
No one comes.
Sixty-three.
The executioner pulls.
The blade drops.
And the air rips open.
Nessa doesn't see it happen. She hears it. A crack like thunder splitting stone. The blade stops three inches from her neck, stuck in something invisible, something that smells like burnt sugar and iron.
The crowd goes quiet.
Then someone steps through the fence. No. Not through. The fence bends around him like it's afraid to touch him. He's tall. Dark coat that drags the ground. Black hair pulled back tight. And his eyes—
Red.
Not brown with a red tint. Not bloodshot. Red. Like someone dipped them in fresh paint.
A blood heir.
Nessa's stomach drops. She knows what that means. Knows what they can do. Knows they don't show up at public executions unless they want something.
The man walks straight to the warden and holds out a piece of paper.
"I'm here to claim the prisoner."
The warden takes the paper. Looks at it. His face goes white. "Sir. This is—"
"Legal." The man's voice is cold. Bored. Like this is just another Tuesday. "Signed by three guild officials and sealed with my family mark. She's mine."
Nessa stares at him. What the hell is happening.
The warden looks at the executioner. The executioner shrugs. Then the warden looks back at the man and clears his throat. "Sir. I don't know if you're aware, but this woman is sentenced to death for—"
"I read the charges." The man doesn't even glance at Nessa. "I'm taking her anyway."
"But—"
"Do you want to argue with me?" Now the man looks at the warden. Just looks. Doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't move.
The warden steps back.
"No, sir."
"Good." The man turns to Nessa for the first time. His eyes sweep over her like she's a piece of furniture he's considering buying. Then he holds out one hand.
There's a mark on his wrist. A sigil. Black lines twisting into a knot that looks like it's moving.
Nessa's never seen one like it.
"Take my hand," he says.
She doesn't move. "Why."
"Because if you don't, the blade finishes the job."
Her throat tightens. "Who are you."
"Dorian Rook." He says it like she should know the name. She doesn't. "And you're running out of time."
The executioner shifts his weight. The blade creaks.
Nessa's hand shoots out before she can think about it. Her fingers brush Dorian's palm.
The mark on his wrist flares.
Heat punches through her chest. Not pain. Worse. It feels like something crawling under her ribs, wrapping around her lungs, squeezing. She gasps and tries to pull back but Dorian's hand clamps around hers.
"Stay still."
The heat spreads. Down her arm. Up her neck. Into her skull. She can feel it burning through her veins, lighting up every nerve, and then it hits the place where the stolen sigil used to sit and—
It flares back.
The sigil she stole. The one they took. It's still there. Still inside her. And now it's awake.
Dorian hisses through his teeth. His grip tightens. The mark on his wrist burns brighter and the sigil under Nessa's skin answers, dragging itself to the surface, carving itself into her forearm in lines that glow red and gold.
The crowd gasps.
The warden stumbles back. "She's still marked—"
"She's mine now." Dorian's voice cuts through the noise like a blade. He pulls Nessa forward, yanking her off the post, and the chains snap like they're made of paper. "The contract's sealed."
Nessa's head spins. She can barely stand. The sigil on her arm burns and burns and she doesn't understand what just happened or why she's not dead or why this man is holding her hand like they've known each other for years.
"What contract," she manages.
Dorian looks down at her. There's something in his eyes. Not pity. Not anger. Something colder.
"The marriage contract," he says.
Nessa's stomach flips. "The what."
"You heard me."
"I didn't agree to—"
"You took my hand." He turns and starts walking, dragging her with him. "That's all the law needs."
The crowd parts. No one tries to stop them. The warden just stands there with the paper in his hands, staring.
Nessa digs her heels into the dirt. "Wait. Stop. I'm not marrying some random—"
Dorian stops. Turns. Leans in close enough that she can see the flecks of black in his red eyes.
"You're on death row," he says quietly. "I just bought you seven nights. You want to go back to the blade, keep arguing. You want to live, shut up and walk."
Seven nights.
Nessa's breath catches. That's not a figure of speech. Blood heirs don't talk like that unless they mean it.
"Why seven," she whispers.
Dorian straightens. Doesn't answer. Just starts walking again.
This time Nessa follows.
They're halfway across the yard when the warden shouts behind them.
"Sir. Wait. There's—there's a problem."
Dorian doesn't stop. "Deal with it."
"Sir, I can't. The execution order. It's been rewritten."
That makes Dorian pause. He looks back over his shoulder. "What."
The warden holds up the scroll. His hand shakes. "Someone changed it. The ink's still wet. It says—" He swallows. "It says the prisoner's sentence is delayed until the marriage contract is fulfilled or the groom is dead."
Nessa's blood goes cold.
Dorian's jaw tightens. For the first time since he showed up, he looks surprised. Then he looks down at the mark on his wrist. At the sigil still glowing under Nessa's skin.
"Interesting," he says softly.
Nessa yanks her hand free. "What's interesting. Who rewrote it."
Dorian doesn't answer. He just looks at her. And for half a second, she sees something flicker across his face.
Fear.
Then it's gone and he turns back to the gate.
"Come on," he says. "We need to move."
"Why—"
"Because whoever rewrote that order wants me dead by morning." He grabs her wrist again, gentler this time, and pulls her toward the street. "And if I die, so do you."
The mark on his wrist pulses.
The sigil on her arm answers.
And somewhere behind them, in the execution yard, the warden starts screaming.
Nessa doesn't look back.
She just runs.