The first rule Astra learned was simple:
The Dominion didn't need you alive.
It only needed you obedient.
Astra knelt in a transport carriage with iron slats instead of windows. The road's vibration traveled through her bones. Every jolt made the fresh sigil at her throat throb like a second heartbeat.
She kept her hands folded, because the guard liked quiet prisoners.
The guard liked quiet everything.
He sat across from her, boots wide, baton resting on his thigh as if it were a lover. His crest glimmered faintly at his wrist when the carriage crossed a ward-line—proof he belonged to the law, and the law belonged to him.
Astra stared at the baton anyway.
Not at the wood.
At the space above it.
The interface hung there, faint but present, as though it had decided her eyes were now its home.
STATUS pulsed.
RULESET glinted like a locked door.
At the bottom of her sight, a thin bar crawled forward.
TRACE: 0.3%
Her breath hitched.
It rose when she looked at the system.
It rose when she noticed the cage.
Not for doing anything—just for existing wrong.
Astra lowered her gaze before fear could become a habit. She could not afford that cost.
The carriage slowed. Outside, voices shifted—market noise, perfume-heavy air, and the distant music of a district that sold sin like it was bread.
Lantern District.
Luxury on one street, hunger on the next. The Dominion's favorite kind of balance.
The door yanked open. Light poured in like judgment.
"On your feet," the guard said.
Astra stood.
The sigil at her throat warmed, then burned, as if the crest sensed her pulse rising and decided it didn't like excitement unless it had ordered it.
Her vision flashed.
A thin pane slid open in her sight with a sterile little sound that no one else heard.
CLAUSES (VIEW ONLY)— Obedience Enforcement: ACTIVE— Punishment Delay: 0.0s— Command Queue: EMPTY
Astra's mouth went dry.
Punishment delay.
A value.
A number that could change.
Her hands trembled once, then steadied. The guard grabbed her chain and led her down from the carriage. His grip was firm—ownership practiced into muscle.
She didn't fight him.
Fighting was expensive.
She saved her strength for stealing.
They walked through a narrow corridor between silk-draped buildings. Lanterns hung like captive moons. Perfume masked rot. Men and women watched from balconies with eyes trained to measure value.
Astra kept her face blank, but inside her mind ran like a rat through walls.
Delay. Clause. Value.
The guard tugged her close to a side door—private entrance, away from the market crowd. A place where screams didn't count as public noise.
Astra's stomach tightened. She knew this pattern. The Dominion always tested new brands. Always checked if the chain held.
He shoved her inside a stone antechamber. The door slammed. Quiet fell like a hood.
The guard stepped in front of her, baton now in his hand.
"You're going to learn," he said, smiling with the confidence of men protected by law. "If you're useful, you'll be soft. If you're not, you'll be quiet."
Astra lifted her chin. "I can be both."
He laughed. "Not without permission."
Her throat sigil flared—anticipation, punishment sensing its moment.
Astra looked past his shoulder at the blank wall, and willed her eyes to focus where the interface hovered.
The pane returned, obedient to her attention.
CLAUSES (VIEW ONLY)Punishment Delay: 0.0s
Astra's thoughts sharpened until they felt like glass. She didn't have Write. She didn't have access. She had nothing but the fact that the system was showing her its own locks.
Locks meant hinges.
Hinges meant leverage.
The guard lifted the baton.
Astra spoke fast, before pain could rewrite her into silence.
"You're going to hit me," she said, calm as a contract. "And then you're going to report that I cried. Because that's what you were trained to do—prove the brand works."
The baton paused midair, confused by language not shaped like begging.
Astra stepped closer, just one pace. Close enough that his breath warmed her face. Close enough to make the situation feel like a choice even when it wasn't.
Heat could be armor.
Heat could also be a knife.
"You want to feel powerful," she murmured. "So feel it. But listen first."
His eyes narrowed. "Listen to what."
Astra swallowed, then did the most dangerous thing a branded woman could do:
She tested the leash.
She met his gaze and smiled as if she were the one holding the baton.
"Count with me," she whispered.
His brows knit. "What?"
Astra kept her voice low and intimate, turning instruction into temptation. "One… two… three…"
The guard's breathing changed. The baton dipped without him noticing.
Astra stared at the interface with the edge of her vision and counted again, silently this time, with her heartbeat.
One… two…
The crest at her throat burned—warning, impatient.
Astra leaned in, close enough that her lips nearly brushed his ear, and she chose her words like a lockpick.
"Punish," she breathed. "But do it when I say."
The guard shuddered—anger, arousal, insult, all tangled. He raised the baton again in reflex.
Astra's throat sigil detonated.
Pain punched up her spine—
—and the world stuttered.
Time snapped taut like a cord.
In her sight, the clause value flickered.
Punishment Delay: 6.0s
Astra's lungs seized.
Six seconds.
A tiny mercy.
A tiny opening.
The guard's baton struck—too late.
It hit air.
Astra moved in the gap the system itself had offered, not running like prey, but stepping inside his space, turning his leverage into imbalance. Her shoulder slammed into his chest. She drove him back into the stone wall with a grunt of surprise.
He reached for her chain—
Astra's hand shot up and gripped his wrist, not strong enough to break him, but positioned perfectly to twist. She used his weight, his shock, the six stolen seconds.
The baton clattered to the floor.
Astra's mouth brushed his jaw as she leaned in—close enough to feel his pulse jump, close enough to make him hesitate, because men always hesitated when desire and danger wore the same face.
"Good," she whispered. "Now you know you can lose."
His eyes went wide.
The delay ended.
Pain slammed into Astra like a debt collected with interest. Her knees almost buckled. The crest did not forgive games.
But she had what she needed.
Not the baton.
Not escape.
Proof.
Six seconds could change everything.
The door behind them opened.
Kael Raithe filled the frame.
He took in the scene in one glance: the guard shoved against the wall, Astra too close, the baton on the floor, Astra's face pale with fresh pain she refused to show.
Kael's voice was quiet, which somehow made it worse.
"What happened."
The guard's mouth opened, then shut. He looked from Kael to Astra like a man deciding which predator to confess to.
Astra straightened slowly, forcing her spine to behave like pride. The crest at her throat still burned, but she held her expression steady.
Kael's gaze landed on her throat, the new sigil, the faint sheen of sweat along her skin.
Then his eyes rose to her mouth.
Astra did not look away.
Heat sparked—sharp, strategic, dangerous.
Kael stepped closer. Leather creaked. Authority walked like it owned the floor.
"You," he said to the guard, without looking away from Astra. "Leave."
The guard hesitated.
Kael's wrist shifted, and the military crest variant there glimmered—command made visible.
The guard swallowed and fled.
The door shut.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Astra and Kael stood alone in a small stone room that smelled like punishment and perfume. The baton lay between them like an invitation to violence.
Kael's voice dropped. "Did he touch you."
Astra's laugh was soft, bitter. "He tried."
Kael's jaw tightened.
Astra tilted her head. "Are you angry for me, Hound… or angry he didn't ask your permission first?"
Kael's eyes flashed. A crack again—tiny, controlled, lethal.
"I don't own you," he said.
Astra stepped closer, one slow pace, letting the space between them heat like a wire. "Then don't stand like you do."
Kael didn't move back.
He looked at her throat. His gaze lingered, not hungry—furious, focused, as if the sigil offended him personally.
Astra softened her voice, turning the moment into an intimate bargain. "You offered me a choice once. Blinking. Remember?"
Kael's throat worked. "That was—"
"Dangerous," Astra finished for him. "I know."
She lifted her hands slowly, palms out—clear, deliberate. Consent made visible.
"I'm not asking you to save me," she whispered. "I'm asking you to help me learn the rules."
Kael's eyes flicked to her hands, then back to her face. "Why."
Astra smiled, small and sharp. "Because if my collar is code…"
She leaned in, close enough that her breath warmed his mouth, close enough that the room felt like it might tilt into something neither of them could afford.
"…then someone wrote it," she murmured. "And someone can rewrite it."
Kael's restraint shook, just once, like a door hit by wind.
His hand rose—slow, controlled—and stopped a hair from her throat, not touching the sigil, not taking. Waiting.
Permission offered. Not demanded.
Astra's pulse thundered. She could have leaned in. She could have closed the last inch and let tension become a weapon or a wound.
Instead, she spoke into the space between them, using desire like a blade.
"I saw something," she said. "A clause. A number. Punishment delay."
Kael went still.
Astra watched his reaction like a strategist watches an enemy's shield arm.
He didn't say impossible.
He didn't laugh.
His eyes narrowed as if he were looking at a battlefield map only he understood.
"You shouldn't be able to see that," he said.
Astra's smile widened. "But I do."
Kael's hand lowered, and the air cooled by a single degree.
Then the interface in Astra's vision flickered hard, like it had been listening.
A new pane slid open, clean and unforgiving.
PERMISSIONSREAD: ENABLEDWRITE (SELF): LOCKEDTRACE: 0.7%WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED
Kael's gaze snapped to her eyes, as if he could see the reflected light of the system she was seeing.
Outside the door, boots ran. Voices rose. Someone had reported the incident.
Kael stepped in close, so close his coat brushed her knuckles.
"If they think you glitched," he murmured, voice like a vow, "they won't punish you."
Astra's stomach dropped. "They'll dissect me."
Kael's eyes held hers—hard, honest, conflicted.
Then he said the words that turned the room into a trap and a doorway at the same time.
"Then you come with me. Right now."
And somewhere deep in the Dominion's invisible machinery, Astra felt her collar wake up enough to notice the threat.
TRACE spiked.
The interface blinked one final line, cold as a verdict—
GHOST COMMAND: SLOT FOUND.
"Then you come with me," Kael said—just as the collar decided she was worth hunting.