Chapter 5

Behind us, the clinic door slammed hard enough to rattle the shelves. Sera shouted something from the front room, followed by the sharp scrape of furniture being shoved against the entrance.

"You can threaten me after we survive the next five minutes," Dorian said.

"Funny. You said that before the tribunal too. Then you chained me in front of half the city."

His eyes cut to mine. Gray. Cold. Too close.

"And you were alive to complain about it."

"Barely."

"Still counts."

I yanked my wrist free. The black oath-mark around it flashed under my skin, a thin ring of ink and heat. Dorian's matching mark burned at the base of his thumb.

Seven days.

That was what we had signed in the tribunal vault. Seven days of protection. Seven days of shared pain. Seven days where his life and mine were tied together so tightly that one stupid move could put both of us in the ground.

He had forced the oath on me to keep the crown from executing me.

Now he was the only reason the crown's hunters hadn't reached my throat.

I hated that almost as much as I hated needing him.

"The hunters found us," Sera called from the other room. "There are at least six outside. Maybe more."

Dorian turned toward the clinic entrance.

I grabbed the front of his coat. "No. We open the shard now."

"Mara—"

"The memory archive is in the basement. The shard is already reacting to me. If Calder gets here first, he'll crack it himself, and whatever is inside will be gone for good."

"You don't know that."

"I know Calder. He rewrites bloodlines for a living. He doesn't leave evidence lying around."

Dorian's jaw flexed. "And if opening it kills you?"

"Then you can arrest my corpse. You've always been good at that."

His hand shot out and caught the back of my neck.

The touch stopped me cold.

His palm was warm. His thumb rested just under my ear, where my pulse jumped against his skin. He smelled like iron, leather, and the smoke from the tribunal lamps still clinging to his coat.

"Don't make jokes about dying," he said.

The words came low. Not a command. Worse. Something close to fear.

I stared at his mouth for half a second too long.

Then I shoved him away.

"Don't make rules you won't follow."

His eyes dropped to my lips before he looked away.

Good. Let him feel off balance for once.

Sera burst into the room with a blood-stained bandage wrapped around one arm. "The west windows are sealed. They have crown iron. I can't get anyone out that way."

Dorian drew his blade.

"You stay here," he told Sera. "Keep the patients below the old storage line."

"And you?"

"I buy us time."

"No," I snapped. "You come with me."

Dorian looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"You don't get to walk into an archive that burned three other archivists alive without me."

"I don't need a guard."

"You need someone who knows how to kill crown hunters."

"You've killed people for the crown."

"Exactly. I know where they bleed."

Sera stared between us. "This is a terrible time for whatever this is."

"It isn't anything," I said.

"It's a very loud anything," she muttered.

A fist slammed into the clinic's front door.

Dust shook loose from the ceiling.

A man's voice rang through the building. "Mara Vale! By order of the Tribunal, surrender the shard and the Northbreak warden."

Dorian's blade came up.

I smiled without humor. "They want you too."

"I'm touched."

"They want you alive. They want me dead. Don't confuse the two."

He stepped in front of me anyway.

I caught his sleeve. "If they take me, Calder gets the shard. If they take you, they use your oath-mark to track me. Either way, we're both screwed."

"You make a convincing argument."

"I practice under pressure."

Another impact hit the door. The hinges screamed.

Dorian leaned closer. His shoulder brushed mine. "Basement. Now."

"Was that an order?"

"Yes."

"Try again."

His gaze locked on mine. "Please, Mara. Move."

That did something stupid to my chest.

I turned before he could see it. "Better."

We ran.

The clinic basement sat beneath the treatment rooms, hidden behind a false panel of cracked tile. Sera pulled it open while Dorian watched the stairs with his sword angled toward the ceiling.

"Once you're inside, lock it," he said.

"You're coming in."

"I'll hold the stairs."

"You signed a seven-day oath. That means you don't get to die heroically in a hallway because you're too stubborn to follow me."

His mouth twitched. "You read the terms?"

"I wrote half of them."

"You added the clause about shared consequences."

"I added the clause because I don't trust you."

"You don't trust anyone."

"You arrested me."

"You ran from a bloodline inquiry."

"Because the inquiry was fake."

"I didn't know that."

"You didn't ask."

For one sharp second, the noise above us disappeared behind the space between our faces.

His fingers brushed the oath-mark on my wrist.

Heat snapped through me.

His breath touched my cheek. "I'm asking now."

I pulled my hand back. "Then ask while you work."

The first hunter crashed through the clinic door.

Dorian shoved me through the hidden opening and followed before slamming the panel shut. A second later, metal struck the other side.

"They know about the passage," I whispered.

"They know about the clinic. Not the archive."

"You sound very sure."

"I'm trying to keep you from panicking."

"I'm not panicking."

"You're holding your breath."

I exhaled through my teeth. "I hate you."

"That makes two of us."

The hidden stairs dropped into darkness. I pulled a small blue lamp from my belt and clicked it on. Its light caught the old symbols carved into the stone walls. Names. Dates. Fragments of memory cases sealed by the royal archive.

Some of the names had been scratched out.

All of them were from the years before I could remember my own childhood.

Dorian noticed me staring. "Don't touch anything."

"You keep saying that like I don't know my own job."

"Your job is why half the crown wants you dead."

"No. My job is why they need me dead. There's a difference."

At the bottom of the stairs, a round iron door blocked the passage. My palm print was carved into the center.

I pressed my hand against it.

The door stayed shut.

Dorian raised his blade. "What now?"

"It needs blood."

"Of course it does."

I drew my knife.

His hand closed over mine before the blade touched my skin.

"No."

"Move."

"The oath reacts to open blood."

"The archive doesn't open for dead women, either."

"Use mine."

He turned his palm upward and drew the knife across it.

Blood welled instantly.

I stared at him. "You're offering me your blood?"

"Don't make it sound romantic."

"I wasn't."

"You were thinking it."

"I was thinking you're an idiot."

"Close enough."

He pressed his bleeding hand against the iron door.

Nothing happened.

Then the oath-mark around my wrist tightened.

Pain shot up my arm.

Dorian jerked back, but the mark around his thumb flared red. His blood smeared across the iron, and the door answered with a deep metallic groan.

"Dorian," I said.

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

"I know."

The door opened.

Heat rolled over us, dry and sharp, carrying the smell of old paper and burned metal. At the center of the archive chamber, a glass case stood on a stone table.

Inside it lay the memory shard.

It was no bigger than my thumb. Clear at first glance, but black veins crawled through its center like trapped smoke.

My missing life.

The proof that could clear my name.

The thing Calder had torn out of my mind and hidden behind three layers of royal seals.

Dorian stepped beside me. "Tell me what you need."

"Space."

"No."

"You asked."

"I asked what you need. I didn't promise to give it to you."

I faced him. "If the shard burns me, you'll feel it. If it pulls me under, you'll know. If you interrupt me, the archive could collapse."

"Then don't let it burn you."

"Brilliant plan."

"Mara."

His voice hit harder than the warning.

I looked down at our joined marks. The rings of black ink had spread closer together, thin threads reaching across the skin between us.

"You should stand back," I said.

"No."

"You really only know one word, don't you?"

"When you're about to do something reckless, yes."

I stepped closer until the front of my coat brushed his chest. "If you're afraid, say that."

His hand settled at my waist.

Not hard. Not gentle either.

His thumb pressed into the curve above my hip, right through the fabric. My body reacted before my mind could stop it.

His face was close enough that I felt his breath catch.

"I'm not afraid of the shard," he said.

"No?"

"I'm afraid you'll find out why I hid you."

The room seemed to shrink.

I gripped his coat. "You don't get to throw that at me and then look away."

"I never said I'd tell you."

"Then stop touching me like you owe me the truth."

His fingers tightened at my waist.

For one ugly, dangerous second, I thought he might kiss me.

I hated that I wanted him to.

A crash thundered above us. The hidden panel shook.

Dorian released me first.

"Open the shard," he said.

"You're not done answering me."

"I know."

"You keep saying that."

"Because I keep meaning it."

He moved to the archive entrance, blade ready.

I cut my palm.

Blood hit the stone table.

The shard cracked open with a sound like a scream.

The oath-mark on my wrist locked tight.

I dropped to one knee.

Dorian swore and stumbled at the same time. His hand clamped over his chest.

"What did you do?" he demanded.

"I opened it."

"You lit the mark."

"I noticed."

Black light spilled from the shard and crawled across the table. My blood lifted in thin red lines, weaving through the air. Images flashed inside the glass.

A woman in a white archive coat.

A silver crown resting on a child's head.

A city gate buried under layers of stone.

Then the image twisted.

The woman turned toward me.

I knew her face.

I knew the exact shape of the scar beside her mouth.

My mother.

"No," I whispered.

Dorian moved toward me.

The oath yanked him back so hard his shoulder struck the wall.

"Stay there," I gasped.

"Mara, shut it down."

"I can't."

"You can. Break contact."

"I can't!"

The shard burned hotter.

Pain ripped through my palm and raced up my arm. Dorian cried out behind me. The sound punched through the memory and pulled me halfway back.

"Dorian!"

"Keep going!"

"It's burning you!"

"Then keep going!"

His knees hit the stone.

The oath-mark had climbed from his hand to his wrist, red lines digging into his skin. I felt each one tear through him as if the cuts were opening on my own body.

"Stop," I said.

"You need the evidence."

"I need you alive."

His head lifted.

For once, he had no sharp answer ready.

I pressed harder against the shard.

The memory exploded across the chamber.

My mother stood before the North Gate. Behind her, black-armored figures slept beneath the city floor, packed shoulder to shoulder in a dark underground army.

Calder stood beside her, younger and clean-faced, holding a royal seal.

My mother looked straight through the memory and straight at me.

Her lips moved.

The shard carried her voice into the room.

"Mara, if you're hearing this, Calder has already taken your name. Do not trust the tribunal. Do not trust the crown. And whatever happens, do not let Dorian open the North Gate."

The memory cut out.

The shard dropped against the stone with a sharp click.

Dorian stared at me from the floor, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

"What did she say?"

I couldn't answer.

The oath-mark around my wrist loosened, but it didn't release. Instead, a fresh black line crossed from my skin toward his.

Dorian pushed himself upright. "Mara. What did she say?"

I closed my bleeding hand around the shard.

Behind the archive door, the hunters started cutting through the iron.

Dorian reached for me. "Tell me she didn't say my name."

I stepped back, clutching the evidence that could make him my enemy all over again.

"She said," I whispered, "you must never open the North Gate."

His hand froze inches from mine.

Then the iron door split down the middle, and Dorian turned toward the breach—while the oath-mark pulled me after him, forcing my wrist into his waiting hand before I could decide whether to run or—