"Your mark," the girl says. Even her voice is beautiful—sultry and soft—but she carries herself like someone who is anything but. There's something calculating in the way she watches me that I don't like in the slightest.

"What about it?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel.

"Show us your mark," the earth affinity demands, nodding toward my concealed hand.

"She looks like a water," the girl says, eyes narrowing. "Or maybe it's just that she smells like a fish." She crinkles her upturned nose, lips curling in a grimace.

The comment hits like a slap. I think of my family, of the sea that gave us sustenance before swallowing them whole. Of salt-crusted hands and the smell of home that I'll never know again. "Fuck you," I spit back. It's not clever, but patience and wit feel like far away memories at the moment.

I brace for her to hit me, but the cold fire in her eyes is somehow worse. It smolders there, deeper than simple anger. It's the quiet stare of someone who's killed before and wouldn't hesitate to do it again. It's the look of somebody who doesn't forget a sleight—someone who won't stop until they've collected their due in blood.

She steps closer until I can feel her breath hot against my face and can count each perfectly curled eyelash. "Show me. Your mark," she says through her straight white teeth, the words barely above a whisper. “If you’re loyal to Empire, then you should have nothing to fear. Unless you’re not?” her head tilts, the question lingering like a blade at my throat. “Are you a traitor?”

I force myself not to flinch. Every instinct screams to back down, to submit, but I've seen enough of this place to know that weakness is a death sentence. My eyes shift to the scarred volunteer. He stares back, his expression unreadable.

"Show her," he says, voice low and rough.

"Is she your leader?" I ask with a half-smile that feels more like a grimace. "I didn't take you for the follower type."

A muscle in his jaw tightens. Raith steps forward, one large muscled arm pushing the girl aside as if she weighs nothing. He towers over me, radiating heat like a furnace. "Mark," he repeats. "Show it."

I stare up at him, uncomfortably aware of how easily he could break me. With those huge arms and hands, I imagine he could snap my bones like kindling without breaking a sweat. Even the pretty girl could probably kill me without much effort. And I'm the short-tempered idiot who pissed them off.

But what choice do I have? Flash my silver mark and ask them to promise not to tell anyone? That feels even more suicidal than continuing to defy these three.

"I'd rather not," I say, voice barely above a whisper.