Page 69 of Veil of Dust

Let them wait, I think, my pulse cold, deliberate, a hunter savoring the kill. Let them think they’ve got me.

I let the smell of gun oil and fresh blood hang for another breath, heavy, metallic, grounding me in the chaos I’ve wrought.

Then I pull it out, the phone’s screen glowing harsh against the flickering dark, a message waiting like a blade.

Bianca: You’re dead.

I smirk, a curl of my lips, sharp and unyielding, a challenge thrown back at her unseen eyes.

Not tonight, I think, my grip tightening on the phone, my resolve a fire hotter than the one I’m about to set.

She’s marked herself now, a name on my list, a debt I’ll collect in blood.

But she’s next. Bianca’s threat is a spark, but I’m the flame, and I’ll burn her world before she touches mine.

I step over Jace’s body, his arm bent under his back like it tried to stop the fall and failed, a useless gesture frozen in death. His blood creeps toward a crate of marked bills, the same ones he counted for me a week ago, his hands greedy even then.

Now they’re his grave, soaked in his betrayal, a monument to his mistake, to the Elder’s poisoned promises.

I pop the gas can open, the cap clattering on the concrete, the scent sharp, biting, a vow of destruction.

Pour it, slow, deliberate, gasoline glinting as it splashes over every surface, claiming the room.

Every stack of bills, their edges curling under the liquid’s weight, money turned to kindling.

The desk, its drawers spilling secrets I no longer care to keep, now fuel for my fire.

The map, its borders meaningless, red lines drowning in the promise of ash.

The blood, Jace’s and others’, pooling on the floor, mixing with the gasoline, a sacrament of ruin.

I flick the match, its sulfur flare bright against the dark, a single spark holding all my rage.

The flame catches like it was waiting, hungry, alive, born for this moment.

It doesn’t crawl.

It leaps, a wild, ravenous thing, swallowing the bills, the desk, the map in a heartbeat.

Roars, a sound that shakes the walls, fire racing up the room’s edges, claiming everything it touches.

Fire races up the wall, eats through the ledger pages still stuck to the bulletin board, their secrets blackening, curling into nothing. Black smoke billows against the ceiling, thick, choking, a shroud for the dead.

The lights above sputter, flickering, their buzz drowned by the flames’ fury, the safehouse trembling in its death throes.

The scent of charred flesh mixes with ink and scorched varnish, a bitter tang that clings to my throat, my skin.

The coup bleeds, its pulse weakening as the fire consumes, but it’s not dead yet, not while names like Bianca still breathe.

But it lives, a spark buried in the ash, a fight I’ll carry until every traitor’s gone, until Vespera’s safe.

I don’t need loyalty anymore, not from men like Jace, not from an Order that’s rotting from within.

I don’t need the Order, its rules, its chains, its lies that tried to bind me to a path I’ve outgrown.

And I’m done asking, done waiting for permission to take what’s mine, to protect what matters.

I walk out while the building burns behind me, the heat licking my back, a lover’s touch I don’t return.

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