She climbed down from the roof the way she always did—slow, careful, using tiles that still held. The Scion padded below, a dark heat moving through alleys. The Gem pulled her forward like a rope around her ribs, dragging her toward Scribe's Row whether she wanted to go or not.

  When she dropped to the parapet and looked back, Runewick lay like a wound: ragged edges, smoke-pale, the temple's dead light making every window an accusing eye.

  Scribe's Row smelled of old paper and burned fat. The barracks had become a knot of boarded doors and barricade timber. Life clustered here—she could feel it through the bond, dozens of heartbeats packed close together behind those walls. The Gem strained toward them like a starving dog catching the scent of meat.

  "Not the civilians," she whispered. "Just the soldiers. That's the deal."

  I make no deals.

  "Then I do." Her jaw clenched. "Soldiers only. They've earned it."

  She told herself that was true. Told herself she remembered the boot that had kicked her away from the baker's stall last winter. The guard who'd laughed when she'd begged for help after someone stole her coin purse. The one who'd grabbed her wrist so hard it bruised, checking her for theft she hadn't committed.

  Street trash. That's what they'd called her. Hellborn filth.

  They'd never cared if she lived or died.

  So why should she care now?

  The thought sat sour in her stomach, but she held onto it anyway. It was better than the alternative. Better than admitting she was just hunting whoever the Gem wanted, choosing victims by convenience instead of justice.

  She moved down into the square as light thinned. Someone had built a barricade of barrels and overturned carts. A few lamps burned in iron cages, sputtering and green-tinged.

  Three soldiers stood guard. Young men in rusted mail and dented helms, soot marking their armor. The leftmost held a crossbow. The middle gripped a short sword. The third—taller, older around the eyes—rested his hand on a spear planted in the cobbles.

  Behind them, she could hear it: quiet voices. A child crying. Someone coughing. The civilians they were protecting.

  Yara crouched behind a broken fountain, the Scion curling beside her in the smoke. Heat rolled off its scales.

  Three soldiers. She could take them. Feed the Gem. Get strong enough to keep going. And the people they were guarding would be fine—she'd leave them alone, walk away, let them hide in peace.

  Just the soldiers. That was all she needed.

  Three will barely satisfy. The dozen behind them would fill us properly.

  "No." She said it out loud, firm. "The soldiers. Nothing else."

  The Gem pulsed, displeased but accepting. For now.

  She studied the men. They spoke quietly among themselves, too low to hear clearly. One gestured toward the barricade. Another shook his head. They looked tired. Scared. Human.

  Just like the looter had looked human. Just like she'd let him go.

  But these were different. These were guards. They'd chosen to wear that armor, carry those weapons, enforce the Regent's laws that kept people like her starving in the gutters.

  They'd made their choice.

  Now she'd make hers.

  She needed them away from the civilians. Separated. Where feeding wouldn't endanger anyone else.

  "Drop your weapons!" she called, stepping into view. Her voice carried thin through the ash.

  If they ran, she could chase. Pick them off one by one, away from the barricade. Away from the people hiding behind it.

  If they stayed and fought, she'd have to be more careful. Precise. Make sure the blast didn't spread to whoever was sheltering in those buildings.

  Either way, she told herself, it would just be the soldiers.

  Just the ones who'd earned it.

  The soldiers spun. The first one jerked his crossbow up, bolt wobbling as his hands shook. The second raised his sword, but held it wrong—too high, too tense. The third planted his spear and didn't move, staring at her with wide eyes.

  "Wait—wait—" The one with the spear stepped forward, hand raised. "We're City Guard. We're not—we're trying to help people here."

  "Drop them now!" Yara barked.

  "Listen—just listen—" His voice cracked. He was maybe nineteen. "We've got families back there. Kids. We pulled them out of the lower quarter before—before everything—" He swallowed hard. "Please. Whatever you want, just don't hurt them."

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  Yara's mouth went dry. "How many people?"

  "Dozen. Maybe more." He looked back toward the barricade, then at her. "Half of them are children. We lost four men getting them here. Darrick, he—" His voice broke. "He didn't even have a weapon. He just threw himself at one of those things so a little girl could run."

  The one with the crossbow spoke up, voice shaking. "We're not gonna fight you. We can't. Look at us." He gestured at himself, at his dented armor, his trembling hands. "We're exhausted. We haven't slept. We're just trying to keep them alive until—" He stopped. "Until something. I don't know what anymore."

  The third soldier hadn't said anything. He just stared at Yara, sword held in a white-knuckled grip, positioned between her and the barricade. His jaw worked like he was trying not to cry.

  "Drop the weapons," Yara said again. Quieter this time. "Just put them down."

  The tall one looked at his companions. The crossbowman's hands were shaking so badly the bolt rattled. The silent one shook his head, barely perceptible.

  "We can't do that," the tall one said. His voice was steady now, resigned. "You come through, you come through us. That's—" He swallowed. "That's all we got left. We can't protect them without weapons, and we can't just hand you the only thing standing between them and—" He gestured vaguely at the ruined city. "Everything."

  Behind the barricade, a child started crying. A woman's voice hushed it, soft and desperate.

  The Gem surged in Yara's chest, hungry and insistent.

  Three. Take three. Leave the rest.

  Her hand rose, palm heating. The scar glowed dull green.

  The soldiers saw it. The crossbowman took a step back. The silent one's sword dropped an inch. The tall one with the spear just stood there, breathing hard, not moving.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, but I can't. They're counting on us. We're all they've got."

  Yara's fingers curled. Power gathered beneath the scar, ready to blast, ready to feed.

  These were soldiers. They'd chosen this. They'd worn the armor, carried the weapons, enforced laws that kept people like her starving.

  But they'd also thrown themselves at monsters to save children. They'd stayed when they could have run. They were standing here, terrified and shaking, because a dozen people needed them to.

  Just like she'd needed someone once. And no one had stayed.

  "Please," the tall one whispered. "Please don't make us die like this."

  Her nerves jumped.

  She shouted, too close to a cry, “Surrender!”

  The tall soldier’s eyes widened—there, in that instant, the split second that asked for trust. He stepped forward, hands empty, the spear falling limp at his side. “We surrender,” he said.

  And her hand moved of its own will.

  The blast tore from her palm green and gold, a cord of winter and thunder—faster than thought, faster than breath.

  It hit him square in the chest.

  The impact knocked him backward into the fountain’s rim. Armor dented with a sound like soft metal giving way to living weight. He twisted, flailed, and crumpled against the water’s dry lip, motion stuttering until it stopped.

  The other two shouted curses and alarm and fired. The crossbow barked; a sword sang as a man lunged.

  The Scion answered in a single, terrible motion. It uncoiled and leapt across the square at a speed no bulk should have allowed. Claws flashed; stone split; the sound of shattering cut the other two off mid-movement. The action was clean and brutal; the square’s noise ended as suddenly as it had started. Smoke and ash filled the space where men had been.

  Yara stood, legs shaking, palm still extended where the blast had gone. Light guttered from her fingers until nothing glowed at all. She looked at the man lying where water had once run and realized she had become what she feared: her actions, meant for survival, brought irreversible loss.

  He’d dropped his weapon. He’d surrendered.

  Something inside her cracked like thin glass.

  She stumbled forward, knees finding stone, and knelt beside him. His chestplate was caved inward; the runes along the metal’s edge glowed faintly and then dimmed, like breath leaving a throat. Her pulse thudded in her ears.

  “No,” she breathed. “No, I can fix this. Please—please live.”

  The Gem woke. Its hum rolled through her chest heavy, eager, uncaring of human definitions. Yara pressed her glowing hand to his armor because that was the bargaining she knew, light for life, light for the bargain she’d signed without reading.

  The power answered. Light ran from her palm into the rent metal, a cold, crawling, and then fierce, searing force. The smell of ozone and warm iron filled the air. Metal warped, skin rippled beneath, sinew rearranged with noises like small animals struggling in traps. She tried to wrench her hand away, but the Gem held her there, feeding and making her watch.

  The glow dimmed.

  The silence that followed was a hollow so vast it felt like a thing you could drown in.

  Then the man moved.

  His fingers clawed at stone; nails blackened as if burning into the cobble. The dented breastplate split as something lengthened within his spine, stretching, his joints reforming too quickly to be natural. His jaw unhinged in a wrong, long way; breath came ragged and alien. When he opened his eyes, they shone a bright, terrible green—pupils thin and serpentine.

  Yara scrambled back on, shaking hands. “No. No—stop—please—” Her voice broke into the smoke.

  He turned his head with the slow confusion of something learning to hold up its own weight; his lips moved around new hooked teeth. For a half-breath, he looked almost plaintive, like a child woken into a nightmare and trying to find the name for it.

  He said her name. “Yara.”

  Hearing it from that mouth made her stomach lurch.

  The Scion stepped forward, a living wall blotting out part of the burning sky. The scrape of its claws on stone sounded like slow applause. The Gem purred through her blood, calm and proud, a beast satisfied.

  You wanted him alive.

  The thing that had once been a man crawled toward her with a shudder of strength and broken comprehension. Head tilted in a grotesque mimic of curiosity. “Cold,” it whispered, voice rough as scraping metal. “Hungry.”

  Beyond the barricade, the city answered: the barricade stirred—soldiers at the flanks, a scattered handful of civilians, the frail raising prayers to gods that had shown themselves absent. Crossbow bolts hissed and struck flesh; one hit the Horror’s shoulder and shattered on impact. He screamed—a sound like metal tearing.

  The Scion roared.

  Yara didn’t stop it this time.

  It crossed the square in a rush, claws and heat and impossible force. The barricade folded; screams split the air like wet cloth being pulled apart. When the sound finally thinned, smoke and ash drifted through what was left of the street.

  The Horror knelt beside her, head bowed as though confused by the simple gravity of kneeling. His breath came in rough, uneven pulls. “Safe,” he murmured again, no question in his tone, only the truest statement he could find.

  The Gem hummed inside her, vibrating through ribs and bone.

  Now you see. Nothing stays dead. Nothing leaves hungry.

  Yara stared at the ruin and at the thing wearing the face of a man she had shot. Horror, guilt, and regret collided within her as she confronted what survival truly cost. She wanted to vomit, to run, to apologize, knowing nothing would undo what she had done.

  Instead, she made a small motion with her head, surrendering in a single, tired movement.

  “Fine,” she whispered. “Then we start here.”

  knows her name. He follows her. And the Gem is pleased with what she made.

  monster.

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