Chapter 102. The Law That Remembers

Cassandra’s blade snapped sideways between grasp and skin, the edge bright as an oath spoken through teeth. Steel kissed the leader’s knuckles at the seam and slid, leaving a thin line of blood that smoked away in the threshold’s breath. The door tasted steel set in defense of consent and liked the flavor; pressure eased a fraction at Aria’s chest, as if the moving hinge had decided that iron could be grammar when used correctly.

“You cannot build a law around one woman’s refusal,” the leader said, voice thick with the ritual that still tried to make cadence into destiny. “A door cannot be trained to care about her any more than a river can be trained to notice a single stone.”

Aria did not look at him. She kept her eyes on the vessel, on the threads at the woman’s wrists that had loosened enough to look like bracelets rather than reins. “You are not a stone,” Aria said, the words shaped for the door as much as for the woman. “You are one of the hands that writes how cro