Chapter 1

Ten years ago, my mate faked his death in the war and ran off with his childhood sweetheart.

No goodbye. No contact since.

All he left me were two things — a debt of six hundred and eighty thousand, and a notice declaring him lost, stamped four years later by people who'd never met him.

The bank took our den. I moved into a shared burrow-flat at the edge of the settlement.

I had to sell blood to the healing stores when the wages didn't stretch. Hauled crates through supply-depot nights until my shoulders gave out. Scrubbed latrines at the guard barracks for extra coin. Spent three years as a tonic trial subject for the healers, testing whatever they needed tested, until my sense of smell dulled and my hearing went with it.

Ten years to pay off the debt. A desk at the Missing and Fallen Registry Office, once the ceasefire finally came.

My first case file was a man the law had already declared dead.

He said he'd been young and reckless. Walked out. Never looked back.

Now his family's land was due a war reparations payout, and he needed his name restored to collect it.

I knew the name before I finished reading it. I knew the scent still clinging to the paper, faint under the new ink, but his.

I didn't look up.

"Insufficient documentation," I said, signing the rejection line. "Application denied."

Ten years I'd waited for this signature. I hadn't expected it to feel this quiet.

He was already talking when I looked up from the file.

"There's been a mistake." Callum Draven's voice was tight, the kind of tight that belonged to a man who wasn't used to hearing no. "I have my registration record from the outpost. Deployment stamps, dates, everything."

He dropped a folder on my desk like it was supposed to settle the matter. It smelled like him. Older, duller, but him.

I didn't open it.

"The application's incomplete," I said. "You'll need to resubmit with valid documentation."

"I just handed you valid documentation."

"You handed me a folder." I slid it back across the desk. "The outpost you're claiming was decommissioned after the treaty. There's nothing left to verify against."

Something moved behind his eyes. Not recognition. Just irritation, sharpening.

My coworker Jasper leaned over from the next desk, voice low. "Briar. That's Callum Draven. He and his mate run one of the biggest survivor accounts in the territory. Almost a million followers. You want to be the clip they post tonight?"

I didn't answer him.

"The rules don't change because you have followers," I told Callum.

His jaw tightened. He leaned forward, both hands flat on my desk.

"Then name a number. Whatever gets this moving. I'm not asking you to bend the law. Just speed things along."

He had the ease of a man who'd never once gone without. Good coat. Steady hands. Not a mark on him that ten hard years should have left.

There was no fairness in that. I'd made peace with it a long time ago.

Ten years had worn the shine off my face. Dulled my scent past recognition, three years of tonics doing what they'd done to my blood.

So he didn't know me.

But he was sitting in my hands now. A hundred and twenty million dollars, and he couldn't touch a cent of it without my signature.

"Application denied," I said. "Next."

Callum stood so fast his chair scraped back. He snatched the folder off the desk, knuckles white around it.

"You'll regret this."

"Duly noted."

"Whoever's sitting in this chair tomorrow, it won't be you."

He didn't wait for a reply. The door didn't slam, but it came close.

I sat there after it swung shut, staring at the space where he'd been standing.

Ten years.

Ten years, and he still had no idea whose desk he'd just begged at.