The chamber stank of myrrh, wet stone, and something older—dust from bones that had no business being disturbed.
Lady Yvaine sat at the center of the room, surrounded by nine robed figures, each cloaked in colors that marked their house allegiance, but masked by the pall of secrecy. The rite demanded anonymity, even from allies. Even from kin.
A brazier burned low before her, casting long shadows against the walls. The old banners of Rhime hung limp behind her like forgotten ghosts.
"By blood unspoken," she said, voice low and sharp, "by bonds forsaken, and by the breath of the dying moon—I call the Widow's Game."
The flames guttered.
One of the masked figures stirred. "A Blood Hunt is not lightly named, Lady Yvaine."
"It is not lightly borne," she answered.
"And yet you bear it alone," another voice—older, male—grumbled.
Yvaine turned slightly, her profile etched in red light. "I do not come with a whim. I come with a wound."
Silence.
She stood, slow and deliberate. Her left hand trembled slightly as she reached into her robe and produced a folded ribbon of black silk, the edges frayed.
She held it high.
"Chain silk," she said. "Taken from Cindrelle, the last binding post. Burned into ash. Ezra Nyre was there. He broke the altar. He cut through the old glyphs like they were threadbare lies. The Chain is dead, and now he seeks to end what remains."
"Ezra Nyre is not a lord," someone said. "He is not a house. You cannot declare the Game on a ghost."
Yvaine's voice sharpened. "He is no ghost. He is a fire. And fire spreads."
One of the figures stepped forward, revealing deep red beneath their robe. Derain. Of course.
"And what do you expect from the Game?" the figure asked. "Retribution?"
"Resolution," Yvaine replied. "I do not ask for vengeance. I ask for clarity. For the right to draw lines, to mark him as Enemy—not just of Rhime, but of every bound house still left breathing."
Derain's representative paused. Then gave the smallest nod.
"The Widow's Game is granted."
The other figures echoed the words in a low, solemn murmur.
Yvaine exhaled. The cost of the Game was steep—once declared, all neutrality was broken. Ezra would be hunted openly now. And those who sheltered him would bleed for it.
But some debts could not be paid in coin.
She turned and left the chamber.
And did not see the figure that lingered behind, fingers twitching against a hidden sigil sewn into their robe.
Aurelian met her in the east courtyard, pacing beneath the broken colonnades. The sun was just breaking over Rhime's frost-covered rooftops, its light catching on the blood still flaked along his jaw.
"You did it," he said.
Yvaine nodded, her jaw tight. "The Widow's Game is called. Ezra Nyre is marked."
"And Sera?"
"She'll understand."
"No," Aurelian snapped. "She won't."
Yvaine turned to him, sharp and cold. "She left the door open. She let him walk away."
"You weren't there."
"I didn't need to be. I see what he's done. I see what he's still doing."
Aurelian took a step closer, voice low. "You didn't see his face."
"And that matters?"
"It does to Sera."
Yvaine hesitated. Then, softer: "It mattered to me, once, too. But that man died somewhere between Rhime and fire. What walks now—what tears through supply lines and strangles our networks—that's not Ezra. That's what's left."
She started to walk past him, but he reached out, stopping her.
"I won't hunt him," he said.
She stilled.
"You are Rhime's sword," she said flatly.
"I was," he answered. "Before the sword turned on its own hilt."
Her face cracked—just slightly—and the grief beneath slipped through like a whisper.
"You don't get to stand aside, Aurelian. Not now. We're past the point of mercy."
"I'm not asking for mercy. I'm asking for memory."
He let go of her arm and stepped back.
"You gave her no warning."
"And she gave him a way out," Yvaine said. "That was warning enough."
She turned and left him there, sunlight bleeding gold across the stone at her feet.
Sera stood at the edge of Rhime's western wall, overlooking the low fog that rolled through the valley.
She already knew.
The moment the rite had been cast, she'd felt it. Something old had shifted in the city's bones. A string pulled tight.
Ezra was now the hunted. And by extension, so was she.
Olen stood beside her, his arms folded. He didn't speak for a long time. When he did, it was simple.
"They've sanctioned it."
Sera nodded.
"They say it's a Game," she murmured. "But it's always been a war."
Olen looked at her sideways. "You going to run?"
She gave a dry laugh. "No. I'm going to think."
He arched an eyebrow.
"Yvaine thinks Ezra is a knife—one that needs breaking before it cuts the throat of the old order. She's not wrong. But she's not right either."
"You think there's something left in him?"
"I think there's something left to lose," she said.
Olen crossed his arms. "And if he won't stop?"
"Then we end it," she said, voice firm. "But on our terms."
She turned to him.
"Find the ones still loyal. Not to the Chain. Not to Rhime. To us."
"To you," Olen said.
"No," she said. "To what's coming after."
Three days later, Ezra walked into a trap.
Not in battle. Not in some fortified town or scorched ruin.
In a tavern.
In a small, low-roofed wine hall outside Rhed's Crossing, where the rain leaked through the eaves and the barkeep kept smuggling messages between servants of Derain and Veylan for extra coin.
He should've known the moment the floor creaked wrong. The moment the air shifted.
He only had time to draw half a glyph when the door behind him slammed shut, and three figures in Rhime gray stepped through.
"You're marked," said the lead soldier, helmet off, hair tied in the northern warrior's braid.
Ezra didn't respond.
"You don't get trials," she said. "Only fire."
Ezra smiled, faintly. "Then it's fair, at least."
He moved like a whisper.
The first two soldiers fell before they could scream—sigils unraveling in the space between blinks, blades scorched black from counter-charm recoil. The third, the leader, almost reached him.
Almost.
He didn't kill her.
Just broke her arm and stole her knife.
"Tell Yvaine," he said, voice low as thunder. "I don't run."
And then he vanished again—like breath in winter.
Back in Rhime, the war room was louder now—new maps, new whispers, old wounds reopening.
Yvaine sat like a statue, listening.
Sera stood across from her, unmoved.
"You drew blood and he bled," she said. "But now he bleeds others. It won't stop."
"You let him live."
"I didn't let him live. He chose not to die."
"That's not how war works."
"It's how memory works," Sera snapped. "And he remembers what they did to his family. So do I."
Yvaine stared at her for a long time.
"You're too close," she said.
"So are you."
Aurelian stepped into the silence, arms folded.
"We need another way."
Yvaine didn't speak.
He went on.
"Ezra is dismantling the Houses, not with siege weapons but with silence. He's killing the economy, the gossip, the infrastructure. That's not just blood—it's brilliance. And it's a strategy someone taught him."
Sera said nothing.
Aurelian looked at Yvaine.
"We don't need to outfight him. We need to outthink him."
Yvaine leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled.
"And you have a plan?"
"Not yet," Aurelian said. "But I know where to start."
He pointed to the map.
"The Widow's Game makes him a target. But if we want to win this, we have to stop playing the game on their terms."
He turned to Sera.
"We need to find the last ledger."
Her eyes widened. "The First Chain?"
He nodded.
"The one that predates the Houses. The one they buried."
"If it even exists," Yvaine said.
"It does," Sera murmured. "My mother mentioned it once."
Aurelian nodded.
"If we find it, we find the original bindings. The architecture. The why."
He looked between them.
"And then we break it."
Yvaine stared at him.
"You're not proposing a defense."
"No," he said. "I'm proposing extinction. End the system. End the war."
Yvaine was silent.
Then, after a long pause, she nodded.
"Find