Kael was upstairs in the boathouse, the impromptu festival still raging outside. Music and laughter spilled through the office windows, soft and distant, like echoes from another life. The kind of life other people lived. A life untouched by scars, by ghosts, by blood on the hands that still trembled when no one was watching.

  Runt was curled on his bed, stubborn and silent, clutching his worn bedsheets in a white-knuckled grip. She looked impossibly small against the backdrop of the battered room—small, but unmovable.

  He had led spear charges across open fields. Broken citadels with fire and steel. Stared down Dreadborn, slaughtered First Fangs in single combat. But he couldn’t—for the life of him—get this girl to let go of his bedsheets that she held like a lifeline.

  “You didn’t take me with you,” she whispered, voice barely more than breath. There was no anger in it—just hurt. Deep and quiet.

  Kael lowered himself to sit beside her, slow and careful, as if approaching something fragile. He reached out, fingertips grazing the edge of the blanket—only for her to pull away, shrinking back. Not in fear. In disappointment.

  “Runt…” he started, but the words caught. He swallowed, tried again. “I would’ve brought you if I could. Looters are dangerous people.”

  She peeked out, half her face buried in the blankets, green eyes flickering with something uncertain.

  “The rat?” she asked.

  “If I knew you were going to hide up here instead of enjoying the festival...” he hesitated, then softened, “Yeah. I would’ve taken you with me.”

  “Really?” she asked, her voice so quiet it almost didn’t reach him. Something tender cracked open in her tone. Hope, maybe. Or the fear of hoping.

  “Really,” he lied.

  He raised his hand again—slower this time. She didn’t pull away. She leaned into it instead, like a moth drawn to warmth. Her cheek brushed his palm, soft and unsure, but trusting.

  He could see it all on her face—the unspoken questions, the aching need to feel needed. To feel like she wasn’t just a stray he’d picked up. Like she belonged.

  Kael searched for the words. Not the rehearsed ones. Not the kind you use on soldiers or nobles or mages. The real ones. The ones that bled when you said them.

  “Runt,” he said, voice low, steady, “I need you.”

  She blinked up at him, not quite believing.

  “You keep me grounded. You remind me there’s still good in the world, even if it’s buried deep. You remind me of the people who don’t have what we have… and the ones who still deserve it. You make me better. You help me hold on to the pieces of myself that are still worth holding on to.”

  She tilted her head, thoughtful. “Like your arm?”

  Kael gave a quiet, broken laugh. “Not just my arm. A whole lot more.”

  She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his side, the way a wounded thing presses close to the only thing that doesn’t hurt. He let her. He stayed still.

  “Do you wanna go to the festival?” he asked after a while.

  “No,” she murmured. “I wanna stay like this.”

  “Okay,” he said softly.

  Outside the door, he could see the shadows of the Ironbound filtering into the office. Oliver would keep things moving, keep the gears turning. Kael knew he’d have to face them soon—pull the mask back on, play the part of the man who always had a plan, always had a grip on the storm.

  But not yet.

  For now, he stayed. Quiet. Steady. A hand resting on the back of a girl who didn’t know how much she mattered. A soldier who didn’t know how to explain it.

  Doing the one thing he could at this moment.

  Calming a young woman’s heart.

  Kael left Runt behind. She said she felt better—and maybe she did. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be a burden. She was his weakness. His humanity, made flesh and voice and stubborn loyalty.

  He let her stay.

  He would have to pull back. He knew it. Knew the day was coming.

  But the thought curled cold in his gut. Once I do… what will be left?

  The torrent whispered in reply, seductive and cruel.

  “Blood. Oceans of blood.”

  Oliver had started the meeting without him. That was fine. Most of it didn’t need him anyway. He knew people, knew how to recruit them, how to motivate them. How to break them. He had good people.

  His task was something else entirely—vision. Pressure. The weight of command.

  Maintaining the myth of a man who could do the impossible.

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  Kael spoke when needed.

  He suggested repurposing the old boats as transport—cargo or personal—for movement between the three lower districts, using the Cradlebrook River that swept beneath the bridges and emptied into the Sea of Sorrows. A practical idea, and one they’d likely adopt.

  He ensured the families of the fallen would receive their death gratuities. Promised they wouldn’t be forgotten.

  He nodded when appropriate, growled just enough to keep an argument from spiraling. Everyone was on edge. Fadefall loomed closer each day, and the city’s barrier was thinning like old paper.

  Harvests were being dragged in with urgency. Refugees poured in from the outlands, villages emptied, frightened families arriving in caravans battered from the road.

  And those caravans were being attacked.

  The vault houses remained half-stocked—held hostage by the Sisters of the Moonmarch unless he fulfilled the Lunar Pledge. A bargain he had no intention of honoring. Not the way they wanted it honored.

  His mind drifted.

  Someone was moving pieces behind the scenes. The Sly Fox Syndicate had been pressed hard enough not to retaliate over an unsanctioned hit. That didn’t happen unless someone powerful was tightening the noose.

  A princess was investigating him. How can I swing this in my favor?

  Runt’s name day loomed—a ritual that would require six days of travel, minimum. Kavari, a known Pridelands agent, was involved. She was watching now. Keeping him in view.

  Being a district lord—what a joy.

  He kept his thoughts to himself as the meeting wound down. People read too much into his silences anyway, projected their fears and assumptions into every glance. Better that than anyone feeling slighted.

  He shook hands as the room slowly emptied.

  Lucien, Oliver, Yuri and Frank stayed behind.

  Kael exhaled, the weight shifting slightly on his shoulders.

  “Alright,” he said. “On to the real meeting.”

  Each of them had their responsibilities—distinct, but overlapping in the ways that mattered.

  Lucien handled security. Patrols, toughs, and day-to-day operations. If someone needed breaking or protecting, Lucien’s hand was already there.

  Oliver ran intelligence, connections, trade, and deals. He knew who was coming and going, who was paying, and who should be watched. Quiet influence was his weapon, and information was his battlefield.

  Yuri focused on internal intelligence—counterintelligence, really. Not just keeping tabs on what people were saying, but how they were saying it. Tone, hesitation, silence—he read meaning in the gaps most never noticed.

  Frank was the trainer, the hammer, the tactician. Second in command when Fadefall hit. He was the one who would hold the line when Kael couldn’t be everywhere at once. And he knew it.

  Everyone had a piece of the pie. But this wasn’t a military command structure. There were no rigid ranks, no standing orders carved in stone. Lines blurred and shifted with need—shaped by trust, by instinct, by the weight of responsibility.

  And Kael was the one holding the center, keeping the edges from fraying.

  Everyone in Kael’s inner circle had their strengths—and their weaknesses. He hadn’t just picked them. He’d cultivated them. Like tools forged for a purpose, tempered in fire and failure.

  Lucien could mow through men like a farmer harvesting wheat—unflinching, efficient, clean. The violence never lingered on him. It never had to. That was valuable. Invaluable, even. But give him a crying child, a grieving mother, or a wounded friend—and he’d stand frozen, confused. Emotions didn’t fit into his frame of reference. Why comfort someone if it doesn’t serve a purpose? Lucien needed a blade in hand, not feelings in the air.

  Oliver had a mind that could track troop movements, economic shifts, and the politics of Brassreach all at once. But his gift for patterns often became a trap. He’d spiral in his own thoughts, chasing the perfect answer while the moment passed him by. Battle didn’t wait for certainty. Sometimes you had to act before you knew. That was the difference between scholars and survivors.

  Yuri was born in the district. He knew its heartbeats, its whispers, the way silence shifted before violence. He could read people like signs in the street—where their eyes lingered, how their feet angled, what their tone really meant. It had kept him alive. But Yuri still believed in people. Too much. He still wanted to see the good. Still hesitated when the enemy was a young junkie with a knife. But mercy on a battlefield was a coin with only one side—it either bought your grave or your guilt.

  Frank had survived more battles than most men had seen Solanir rise. A rock. A wall. A foundation. His instincts were honed, his judgments fast, brutal, and often right. But his solutions were blunt—strike hard, strike fast, remove the problem. The world Kael lived in now required softer hands, quiet knives. You couldn’t smash your way through politics. You had to carve your path with whispers and smiles.

  Kael had seen it all—the war, the aftermath, the cost of getting it wrong. And he had poured everything he had into these people. Not just for the mission. Not just for the district.

  But because he wouldn’t be here forever.

  He needed them to grow. To outlive him. To carry on what he started when the name Kael finally meant nothing to anyone but the dead.

  He was already on borrowed time.

  The noose was tightening. The countdown had already begun. All he could do now was sharpen the blades he had left—and pray to every god, old and new, that they were ready when the storm finally broke.

  “First order of business—our dwindling funds,” Kael said flatly, setting the black case on the dark rosewood table with a heavy thud.

  The others leaned in as he clicked open the latches.

  He had already checked it for traps—at least the ones he knew to look for. Still, some part of his mind flinched, bracing for an explosion. It’s what he would’ve done—wipe out the head of a rival faction in one clean stroke. Cut the snake at the neck. Fewer bodies that way.

  But no.

  Elves and fox kin weren’t soldiers. They were silk-gloved manipulators—soft fighters in soft shoes.

  The case opened with a whisper of well-oiled hinges. Even the box screamed wealth—polished fittings, carved corners, a velvet lining dyed so deep it almost looked black.

  Inside, a quiet fortune glittered in the dim light.

  Mouths opened. No one spoke.

  Kael didn’t need to.

  The disparity spoke for itself.

  This was how the Sly Fox moved—luxury wrapped around leverage. He looked at the elegant arrogance of it all… and thought of his district. Of rationed grain, patched clothes, rusted weapons. Of blood on cobblestones and children with hard eyes.

  Fuck Oliver for putting the possible solutions for their problems in front of him. That was the easy way. Kael had chose to follow through with a dream. And it required no brothels. Only blood, lots and lots of it.

  Money is the root of all evil, they say.

  No, Kael thought coldly, people are.

  And he was one of them. Never brothels.

  Kael stared at the wealth laid out in front of him—and hated how badly they needed it.

  As the others stared into the velvet-lined case, it was Yuri who noticed first. His voice cut through the silence like a thread unraveling.

  “Uh… guys? He’s doing it again.”

  Oliver looked up, the pleasant curve of his mouth freezing mid-smile. “What do you mean—doing what?”

  Lucien’s grin widened, sharp and eager. He didn’t need to understand. He just smelled the blood in the water.

  Frank shifted in his seat, unmoved—stone in a storm. He’d seen that look before. Many times. Before charges. Before war.

  Kael was smiling. That quiet, almost gentle smile.

  The same one he wore when he took the Iron District.

  Yuri’s voice was softer this time. Almost afraid. “Kael… why do you have that smile again?”

  Kael didn’t look up. He just ran a thumb over the edge of the case, as if polishing steel with thought alone.

  “Because,” he said, voice low and final,

  “it’s time to expand.”