The heat inside the Red Court was suffocating.Not just from the crowd pressing in around him, or the stench of sweat and magic, but from the pulsing hunger in the air itself.
Jace could feel it — an invisible current thrumming through the room, making his skin crawl.The shard inside his chest beat faster, like a drum before a sacrifice.
On the stage, the boy screamed again.Another sigil branded into his chest with molten iron.
The masked woman lifted her hand, and the auction paused.
"New offer," she called out, voice sharp enough to cut glass."One secret... for his life."
The crowd stilled.
Whispers. Tension. Bloodlust.
Zariah glanced sideways at Jace, her lips curled into a dangerous smirk.
"Think you got something worth trading, sweetheart?"
Jace said nothing.His mind raced.
He barely understood how the shard inside him worked, let alone what secrets it might hold.But he knew one thing:
He wasn't giving it up.
Not here.Not for anyone.
Especially not for a stranger screaming on a blood-soaked stage.
As the crowd murmured and shifted, another figure stepped forward from the shadows.
A woman — no, not a woman.
Something more.
She wore a white gown that shimmered like spider silk, her face hidden behind a veil. Her presence sucked the air out of the room.
Predator.
Jace knew it immediately.The way you recognize a wolf when it enters the clearing.
She moved with a dancer's grace, stopping just short of the auction platform.In her gloved hand, she held a leash — and at the end of it, dragging on all fours, was a creature that looked vaguely human... once.
Its eyes were hollow sockets now, mouth sewn shut.
The veiled woman lifted her free hand lazily.
"I offer three chained souls and a binding of silence," she purred.
The crowd gasped. Even Zariah stiffened beside him.
That was power.The kind of power only the truly damned could afford to play with.
The masked auctioneer bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment.
"Sold."
The boy on the stage sagged against his restraints, unconscious or dead — Jace couldn't tell.
The veiled woman smiled beneath her veil and turned, leading her silent pet away through the crowd.
Business as usual in the Red Market.
Jace exhaled slowly.
He hated this place.Hated the way it made survival feel dirty.
"You feel it, don't you?" Zariah murmured in his ear, her breath hot and sweet with the scent of spiced wine."This place strips you down. Shows you who you really are."
He said nothing.
But he did feel it.
The shard inside him wasn't disgusted.It wasn't horrified.
It was hungry.
Something brushed against his mind — a whisper, a caress.
Feed me.
The thought wasn't his.And it scared the shit out of him.
"Come on," Zariah said, grabbing his hand and pulling him deeper into the Court."You need a supplier if you're gonna survive what's coming."
They wove through stalls selling blackmarket cultivation pills, cursed grimoires, bottled bloodlines.Jace kept his head down, but his senses flared with every step.
Danger. Opportunity. Betrayal. Lust.
It was a heady cocktail.
Finally, they stopped before a small, unmarked tent at the very edge of the Market.
An old man sat cross-legged inside, his skin the color of ancient parchment, his eyes milky and blind.Before him, spread out on a silk cloth, were stones — each one black as midnight and throbbing faintly with inner light.
"Stonecrafter," Zariah whispered. "He sells fragments. Boosts. Temporary surges. Dangerous as hell, but... sometimes you need an edge."
Jace crouched down, studying the stones.
One in particular caught his eye — a jagged shard with a vein of silver running through it, pulsing in sync with the shard inside his own chest.
It called to him.
The old man's lips cracked into a toothless smile.
"Ah... you have a hunger," he rasped."You walk the path of bone and storm."
Jace frowned.
"What do you want for it?" he asked, nodding toward the silver-veined shard.
The old man cackled.
"Everything," he said."Or nothing. Depends on how strong you are."
Before Jace could ask what the hell that meant, the man leaned forward, the stink of rot wafting from his mouth.
"Swallow it," he said.
No ceremony. No contract. No safety net.
Raw, brutal transaction.
Jace hesitated — for the barest second — then reached out.
The shard burned cold against his skin.
Without thinking, without allowing doubt to settle, he popped it into his mouth.
It sliced his tongue open as it slid down his throat.
Pain.White-hot.Explosive.
He staggered back, clutching his chest as the shard inside him roared to life.
Zariah caught him before he hit the ground, laughing breathlessly.
"That's it, sweetheart," she murmured. "Welcome to the real game."
Visions tore through his mind.Blood-soaked fields.Black storms devouring cities.Power ripping through flesh and bone like a plague.
And through it all...the shard inside him drank it down.
Jace collapsed to his knees, gasping.
When he looked up, the world looked different.Sharper. Meaner.
More beautiful.
The old man was gone.So was the tent.
Nothing left but a faint scent of burned silk.
Zariah crouched beside him, eyes gleaming.
"You feel it?" she whispered.
Jace smiled grimly.
"Oh yeah," he rasped.
He was ready to tear this world apart if it meant surviving.
And maybe — just maybe — ruling it.