Snow blew sideways across the Marshal's Tower, hissing against the chimneys while the Capital glittered far below her. Yenna stood at the roof's edge with her coat open, watching the Colosseum crowds drain into the streets.
'Eleven years I stamped these people into the Games, never once asking what the stamp was for.'
Forty thousand wrists passed under her seal in her years at the Gate, each cold beneath her glove. Tonight she wondered how many of them still belonged to themselves, a question that tasted like old iron.
A thread of gold light snapped over the parapet, hooked a chimney, then hauled a smirking baron onto the slates.
"You said alone, so I only brought one wolf," Hajin called, shaking snow out of his hair.
"I heard that, Idiot," a voice growled from behind the second chimney.
He smiled up at the sky, "She isn't here, that's just a very quiet rock."
The rock muttered, "Tch, you're lucky it's freezing, I'd bite you."
