Aria's pale light ran along the Chain laid across the war room table, drawing lines in the dark. Around it the household sat awake deep into the night, nursing cold tea and one badly chewed map.
"I translated your brand," Aria said, her voice drifting out of the links for the whole room to hear, "it is a law."
Since the reforging the Chain carried her voice to anyone who stood close enough to listen.
"A law is just a very long rule with a nice hat on it," Ferra said, turning a pair of tongs over in her fingers.
"Order is a Throne, its method is rank, whoever stands higher may command whoever stands lower."
"So a stamp is a hook," Ferra said, tapping the table with a soot-black knuckle.
Cassie snapped her notebook shut, "And the Games feed it, every bout is another turn of the crank."
Toby pushed up his sleeve and held out his wrist, where the brand glowed gold in slow pulses. Each pulse matched a heartbeat, calm and unhurried, one that did not belong to poor Toby at all.
