Chapter 26 · Ambush at the Trial Registry

The sewer grates of Asterfall’s undercity reeked of rot and ozone, the stinging tang of arcane runoff burning Nora Vey’s throat as she hauled Beckett Thorne’s weight over a crumbled stone ledge. His left leg was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, the wound from an Enforcer’s shock spear weeping blackened fluid that seeped through the frayed fabric.

Behind them, Kane Rhoan moved silent as a shadow, his hand never straying more than an inch from the hilt of the dented blade at his hip, his jaw set so tight Nora could see the muscle ticking from ten feet away.

They hadn’t spoken since the arena. Not since he’d pressed that blade to her throat, his eyes wild with the ghost of a childhood burned to ash, and demanded to know if she’d known her father had ordered the destruction of the Thunder Crown court.

Not since she’d shoved her contract ring against the edge of his sword, the golden sigil glowing bright with binding magic, and sworn she’d had no idea Elias Vey’s sins ran deeper than debt and greed.

The ring still sat heavy on her finger, its band scored with a thin scratch from his blade.