POV: Cael
The river throws warnings before it throws men. The lower bells stutter—one sharp, one swallowed, one dragged like a throat closing. Jax and I take the south stairs two at a time. The stone is slick from night spray; the gorge wind hits like a slap, carrying river-rot and fear.
Lorre’s squad is already on the nets, boots hooked into rope eyes, poles out, breath steaming in the dark. Lanterns sway overhead, their light warped by mist.
“Left flank!” Jax calls. “Don’t cut unless you have to.”
“Copy!” Lorre shouts.
Shapes shift in the water—brown caps, bad breath, cheap blades. Drift scouts. Not brave, but many. Their shoulders break the surface like sick logs. Their hands shoot up, grabbing rope with the confidence of creatures who don’t care about losing fingers.
We smack hands, jab ribs, shove faces back under. One gets a knee on the rope. Lorre cracks him across the ear with the pole-head. He splashes, curses, vanishes into black water.
“Three more under the west span!” someone yells.
“I see them,” I answer, already moving.
I sprint across the net-edge, balancing on tension and instinct. The river snarls beneath us, nets humming like teeth grinding. A Drift pops up where he shouldn’t—right under my boots. I stomp hard. His grip breaks. He disappears again.
Then a smaller shape darts where it shouldn’t—up through the sluice gutter, quick as a rat in floodwater. He’s wetter, thinner, meaner. He slips between two Shields like a fish with a plan and sprints straight into the service corridor.
“Runner!” Jax barks. “Small one! Fast!”
“I’ve got him,” I say, and go.
He’s fast; I’m faster. I chase him across damp stone, river spray still running down my sleeves. He hits the corner, skids on flour dust, and collides with a tray. Cups explode. Metal clatters. A woman yelps.
Then a sound like wood on bone.
The runner staggers, eyes wide, legs folding. He drops like a cut rope.
I skid to a halt and blink.
Mara stands over him, hair loose, chest heaving, a rolling pin in her hands like it’s a sword she’s been waiting her whole life to swing. Flour dust freckles her cheek and collarbone. She looks fierce and startled and furious all at once.
We stare.
She swallows. “He went where the soup lives,” she says, breathless. “I didn’t like that.”
I can’t help it—the laugh breaks out of me, shocked and warm. Pride hits so hard I have to put a hand on the wall. Jax catches up, takes in the scene, and actually grins like someone handed him a holiday.
“Kitchen weapon effective,” he says dryly, toeing the scout to make sure he’s unconscious, not dead.
“He’ll live,” I say. “Not well.”
Mara looks at the pin like she’s embarrassed to be holding anything violent. Her hands are steady. Mine aren’t.
“You did good,” I tell her.
She shrugs, trying to be small. “He was small enough to hit.”
“Hit anyway,” Pia says from behind her, holding a ladle like a threat. “For practice.”
We bind the scout and hand him to Shields. The corridor starts breathing again—pots rattling, kettles hissing, voices rising in overlapping panic and relief. Mara leans the rolling pin against the wall like she isn’t sure she’s allowed to keep it.
“Take it,” I say. “But also—” I unclip a sheath from my belt and offer it to her. A compact knife. Pearl hilt. Small enough to hide, decent enough to matter. My hands warm the metal.
Her eyes jump to my face. “I don’t—”
“Keep it,” I say. “In case flour isn’t handy.”
She weighs it in her palm. The pearl looks wrong and perfect against her skin. Too soft, too fine, too expensive for a woman who lives in steam and ash. But she holds it like she’s memorizing the shape.
“Knives make my hands shake,” she admits, voice small enough I barely hear it under the clatter around us.
“Then practice until they don’t,” I say, softer. “You scared me tonight. In a good way.”
Her mouth tilts, some fragile expression between pride and fear. We stand too long in a hall where too many eyes could be watching. Jax clears his throat like a friend with a clock.
“Back to the nets,” he says.
“Right,” I answer, and tear myself away before I say something reckless.
We run back down the corridor and plunge into river wind again. By dawn the water is ugly with weeds and bruised pride. Drift bodies scatter downstream—alive but rethinking their life choices. We lost no one. We gained a rumor—“kitchen girl brained a Drift with a rolling pin”—which will feed the city better than stew. By midday I hear three versions, each more dramatic. One insists she swung a cast-iron pot. Another claims she screamed a battle cry. Mara probably hates all of them.
When I reach my desk later, the knife is there on the blotter, cleaned, sheathed. Beside it: a folded scrap of ledger paper.
I open it.
I prefer my hands steady.
I laugh once, helpless. It hurts, because I love her for it—her honesty wrapped in stubborn dignity—and because I hate a world that taught her to write sentences like that in a neat hand, apologizing for fear she never owed anyone.
I tuck the note into my coat, close enough to my heart that Rhun stirs and rumbles approval.