Chapter 31 · Shard Heist

"Don't touch the case." Kael's hand closed around my wrist before my fingers reached the silver latch.

His grip was warm, hard, and annoyingly steady. Mine was shaking.

"Let go."

"You first."

Across the auction room, three hundred masked nobles lifted their glasses while a priest in white gloves presented the Saint Shard beneath a cone of blue light. The shard hovered inside a glass case, bright enough to hurt my eyes.

It was mine.

Not in the legal sense. The Council had stolen every piece of my divinity after the coup, carved my power into glittering fragments, and sold them to people who thought suffering was a form of entertainment.

But that shard still knew me.

It pulsed once.

The curse under my skin answered with a sharp twist through my ribs.

I bit down hard.

Kael noticed anyway. He always noticed the things I wanted hidden.

"Your pupils just changed," he murmured.

"Keep staring and I'll make you lose one."

"You'd have to reach me first."

His thumb pressed against the inside of my wrist. The pressure was light. The result wasn't.