His mask tilted. “You have damaged the future of this city. It’s a far greater injury than any you could inflict with a bullet.”

He stood then, slow and calculated, every movement calibrated for effect. He circled the desk, stopping just in front of her. The mask’s eyes bored into her, reflecting back the animal heat of her hatred.

Without warning, Maximus reached up and removed his mask, and the air in the room seemed to freeze.

Shadera saw this for what it was. His attempt to assert dominance, to flaunt his power. To tell her without words—he was the Heart and the laws did not apply to him.

His face was nothing like Greyson’s. There was no glimpse of softness, no humanity left. Maximus Serel was a blade honed to its final edge—skin stretched tight over high, predatory cheekbones, eyes a colorless gray that revealed nothing. His hair was a perfect silver, not a strand out of place, and the lines that scored his face were proof of a long life of repeated victory.

He gazed at her with the interest of a man examining a new strain of disease under glass.

Shadera forced herself to meet his eyes, refusing to look away even as the old terror surged up from her childhood. There’d been stories, always, of what Maximus did to the rebels he caught before he took them to the execution platform. Of the torture he inflicted before taking their final breaths for all of New Found Haven to witness.

He reached down and gripped her chin, forcing her head up. His fingers were cold, soft—evidence of a life lived in luxury. He turned her face left, then right, as if cataloging the wounds.

“You look nothing like I expected,” he said, releasing her. “I remember your parents, you are the product of their fraternization between rings.”

She swallowed back a snarl at his words, using every ounce of strength she had left not to let the rage explode from every pore.

Shadera bit her tongue to stay silent.

“Why are you still alive? Do you know?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“I don’t care,” she snapped, spitting a clot of blood at his shoe. “I’m not afraid of the Heart, and I’m not afraid of your unmasked face. You don’t scare me, Mr. President.”

Maximus knelt, the movement so smooth it was almost a dance. He wiped the blood from his shoe with a handkerchief, then tossed the cloth into her lap.

“My face is not what you should fear, Shadera Kael.” He straightened. “You are nothing but a cockroach, and the only reason you’re not dead is because I have use for what you do next.”

He turned away, replacing the mask as the doors to his office hissed open.

Greyson Serel entered the room and Shadera’s body reacted before her mind did. She bolted upright, pain radiating through her side as she stared at the man she’d shot point blank.

“You,” she growled at Greyson as Maximus returned to his seat behind the desk, regarding them.

Greyson’s back straightened, his eyes darting to his father then back to her, his own surprise evident in his body language.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Greyson snarled, and Maximus’s head snapped toward him.

Maximus didn’t need to say a single word, the look he gave his son from behind his mask was enough for the warmth to be sucked from the room. Every fist clenched, every hair stood straight, as if they all were preparing to attack, preparing to rip out tendons and shred skin.

The President waited until the silence had grown its own beating heart, until the nerves and violence had leached all the color from their faces. Then he steepled his fingers together and spoke.

“You will be married next week, in a public Vow ceremony. To each other.”

It took Shadera a full three seconds to process the words. Then it registered—every molecule of vitriol igniting in a single searing line down her throat.

“Fuck no,” she spat.

“Not happening.” Greyson’s reply overlapped hers, but it was no softer.

Maximus’s hand twitched in amusement. “You misunderstand. This is not a request. It is the only solution left to preserve order. Now, both of you, sit.”

Shadera’s gaze darted to Greyson, searching for some sign that this was a trick, a trap, a hallucination conjured by the pain leaking through her blood. But he was as stunned as she was, blue eyes hollow behind the obsidian mask.

“Now.” The word was a command from the President’s mouth and Shadera choked back the bile rising in her throat from the thought of following his orders.

Greyson moved first, taking the few steps left to the chair at her right, and reluctantly fell into it. A muscle in Shadera’s jaw jumped once before she finally moved, before she obeyed and sunk down in the chair beside him.

Maximus’s mask gleamed as he leaned forward. “If the world learns that the Heart’s Executioner removed his mask for a Daggermouth, the foundation of our society will collapse. The law is absolute. Only the Vow sanctifies that exchange.”

Greyson clenched his jaw. “It was an accident. She was trying to kill me.”

Shadera scoffed, her eyes narrowing on him. “You took your mask off like a little bitc—”

The President’s hand shot into the air, silencing her before she could finish spewing the long list of profanities piling on the tip of her tongue, and ignored her insult.

“History is not made by accidents, Greyson. It is made by consequences.” Maximus turned to Shadera. “You will be granted the status of elite. The first of your kind. And through you, the rings will see that even the worst animal can be tamed by the Heart. That even a Daggermouth can turn against their own.”

“I would rather kill myself than marry him,” Shadera answered, her voice so sharp it left her throat raw.

Maximus’s laugh was soft, almost pitying. “Then you will die. But not before I send your precious rings to hell. I will burn every Daggermouth in the Boundary, every rebel, and their ashes will fertilize my gardens. Is that what you want for your people?”

Her people. His words echoed in her skull.

Who the hell did they think she was to the rings?

Shadera swallowed, the threat landing as he’d intended. She knew he’d do it, that he’d level an entire ring just to make a point.

Greyson spoke up, his voice tight. “This is insane. You want to marry me to the woman who tried to assassinate your own blood? Who nearly ended the legacy you claim to worship?”

“It is poetic,” Maximus replied, “don’t you think?” He turned his head, letting the light catch the perfect planes of his golden face. “What better way to demonstrate that the Heart’s will cannot be challenged. Not by love, not by hate, not even by violence.”

Shadera watched as Greyson winced then straightened. “This dishonors Brooker’s memory. He died by a Daggermouth’s hand.”

Her head snapped toward him, surprise flashing across her features. She would’ve known if it was a Daggermouth that killed the first heir. It would’ve been celebrated. “How do you know it was a Daggermouth?”

Greyson didn’t so much as look at her as he responded. “Because the contract accepted and signed by Jaeger Nolin was displayed on his body when it was left for us to find in the center of the Heart.”

For a moment the entire world seemed to recede into that one terrible fact. Shadera let the knowledge settle in, and a strange calm spread through her. She could almost laugh, and, in fact, her lips did twitch at the corners, the beginnings of a feral smile.

She wished that contract had been hers.

Maximus cut the silence. “You will have one week, six days precisely, to come to terms with this decision. Until then, you will reside together in Greyson’s apartment, under surveillance to . . . get to know one another. If either of you attempts to break the arrangement, the consequences will be instant and absolute.”