Chapter 1

The day the Five Families Council's sentencing order arrived at the compound, my father strapped the forty-pound punishment harness onto my shoulders with his own hands.

Black steel pressed against the back of my neck. The clasp locked shut over my chest.

He turned away. His voice was cold and flat.

"You grew up on a border farm. You're stronger than Viola. The Northern Road is brutal, but you'll survive it."

"She has a congenital heart condition. If we hand her over to the Council, she won't last the first winter night."

Mother packed cash, medicine, and transit passes into Viola's suitcase. All they left me was a bag of hardtack.

"Keep your head down once you reach Greybay. Don't run your mouth. And don't you dare ruin Viola's engagement to the Belrandi family."

My brother Cassiel pressed my thumb onto the transfer papers himself.

"The entire Northern Line is Council territory. If you run, they'll freeze the Moretti ports and turn every ally we have into an enemy."

One month ago, our adopted sister Viola had broken into the Hall of Saint Oren—neutral ground maintained by all Five Families—just to meet the Belrandi heir in secret.

She lit signal candles in the archive room to guide him in. She knocked over a fuel canister.

The fire destroyed decades of ceasefire treaties and port boundary maps. It killed a Council guard.

Under the underground accords, the arsonist had to be sent to Greybay Penitentiary Camp, eighteen hundred miles north. Banned from Five Families territory for life.

To protect Viola, the Morettis shoved me forward—their biological daughter, brought home less than a month ago.

Viola stood on the front steps in a white cashmere coat. Her face was pale, but her eyes were startlingly bright.

"Elaia, I hear you can see the most beautiful aurora from Greybay."

"When you come back, you have to tell me what it looks like."

I didn't cry. I didn't protest.

I just lowered my head and let the Council men clamp the shackles around my ankles.

"I understand."

"I won't let the Morettis go to war because of me."

They assumed I'd suffered enough on the outside that I was used to being sacrificed.

What they didn't know was that the night before, standing outside the study, I'd heard them decide to hand me over—and a line of cold white text had appeared before my eyes.

[Innocent substitution detected. Scapegoat Protocol activated.]

[Complete the Northern escort. Cross the Greybay boundary marker. Reckoning will commence.]

[Reckoning terms: Dissolution of Moretti family identity. Repair of escort damage. Permanent severance from their tracking.]

[All individuals who voluntarily signed the transfer documents will inherit every punishment you endured on the Northern Road. Every mile of frostbite. Every hour of hunger. Every wound that never healed.]

Even God couldn't stand to watch anymore. He gave me a reckoning system.

All I had to do was walk to the end of the Northern Road. It would expose every record. The real sinners would pay for everything I'd suffered.

And all I had to do was leave my family behind.

And never look back.

……

Three months later, the escort vehicle stopped at Black Pine Supply Station—five miles from the Greybay boundary marker.

The number on my wristband updated to the final count.

[Unsettled mileage: 5 miles.]

Eighteen hundred miles on the Northern Line had worn through seven pairs of boots.

The last pair was glued to my feet with blood. Every step tore the frostbitten flesh back open inside my socks.

Captain Ronan, the escort commander, glanced at my feet and had someone bring me half a bowl of hot soup.

"Drink up and rest tonight. Blizzard's pushing this way. We'll move at dawn."

I'd barely wrapped my hands around the bowl when engines rumbled outside.

A Moretti convoy sat idling in the snow.

Milo, the family's house manager, walked in with two bodyguards. He slid a metal case packed with cash toward Ronan first.

"Don Vittorio has been thinking of Elaia. This is for the escort team's expenses along the route."

Crisp bills, stacked perfectly inside.

I glanced at the case and went back to my soup.

Milo set an encrypted tablet in front of me.

Father's message was only a few lines.

No recanting. No mentioning Viola. And absolutely no dragging the Belrandi heir into this.

Once I arrived at Greybay, I was to comply with camp management. The Moretti family would wire monthly fees to the facility.

The last line told me to protect the family's reputation.

That case of money wasn't for me. It was to buy the escort team's silence.

Then Milo handed me a small travel bag.

On the nineteenth day of the Northern Line, I'd been burning with fever. I recorded a video at a supply station and sent it home.

I didn't ask them to overturn the case. I just wanted a warm coat that could block the wind.

That video was never answered.

I'd made excuses for them.

Father had to keep the Council and the ports stable. Mother was busy comforting a shaken Viola. Cassiel was managing the Belrandi engagement.

They'd only had me back for a month. They didn't know how to love me yet. That wasn't so strange.

I unzipped the bag. The first thing I touched was a down jacket, made in my size.

Something frozen solid inside my chest loosened, just a little.

Then I shook the jacket open. The insulated lining had been stripped out. Nothing left but two layers of waterproof shell.

Milo's expression didn't change.

"One of the bodyguards got hypothermia on the way here. Don Vittorio felt bad and let him take the lining."

"You've been doing farmwork since you were a kid. Five more miles won't hurt."

Then he reached over and dug through my old backpack.

He pulled out a faded blue wool scarf, frowned, and tossed it into the incinerator.

"Greybay doesn't allow uninspected fabrics. Who knows if there's a tracker hidden inside."

I lunged for it, but the flames had already caught the edge.

Margaret knitted that scarf. My foster mother—the woman who actually raised me.

The day the Morettis brought me back to the compound, I couldn't get comfortable in the clothes they'd picked out. Mother said my old sweater collar showing was embarrassing. That scarf was what covered the frayed edges.

I'd told myself—if the Morettis eventually didn't want me, at least I'd still have one thing that was truly mine.

A soft crackle. The last thread of blue wool curled into ash.

Ronan stepped between Milo and the incinerator.

"That was the only personal item she had left."

"Captain, you don't know the full picture." Milo produced an encrypted report. "Miss Viola says her sister has been stealing supplies along the route and using the Moretti name to demand vehicle upgrades."

"She has sticky fingers. The more luggage she keeps, the easier it is to hide stolen goods."

Ronan took the report. His brow slowly darkened.

My soup was taken away. My backpack was turned inside out.

Three bars of hardtack. A battered water bottle. And the four family messages I'd recorded along the way—all sealed into an evidence case.

Milo fed another fuel block into the incinerator.

"Elaia, Viola is just worried you might do something rash."

I fished the blackened metal clasp from the ashes and closed my fist around it.

"Tell her I've only got five miles left. She doesn't need to worry about me."

Milo opened his mouth to say more, but the supply station door slammed open.

Snow blasted into the room.

Cassiel stood in the doorway. Black coat dusted with frost. His eyes went straight to my mangled feet.

Behind him, a bodyguard held a brand-new white thermal jacket.

"Elaia."

It was the first time he didn't use my full name in that cold, formal way.

"Sign the supplemental confession. I'm taking you home."