SEVEN
RATHOK
THE CITY BELOW
The desecrated temple swallows us like a throat.
I lead Ivalys through the shattered doorway, past broken pews scattered like bones after a feast. The nave stretches ahead, hollow and stripped, everything of value torn away generations ago.
Whatever god once lived here, they’ve been dead a long time.
The smell hits next. Old incense competing with fresh decay, the particular sweetness of flesh left too long without burial. Somewhere ahead, water drips in a rhythm that sounds wrong. Too deliberate. Too patient.
Behind me, Ivalys moves in careful silence. I don’t need to look back to know she’s there—I feel her presence like heat against my spine, can smell the sharp tang of her fear beneath the determination she wears like armor.
She’s afraid. Good. Fear keeps you alive down there.
I stop at the altar. The stone surface is stained with substances I don’t examine—old blood or worse, offerings to gods who stopped answering prayers before Gravebind had a name. Behind it, a spiral staircase descends into absolute darkness.
The Debt Crypts. The tunnels where debtors flee to die.
“Wait.” I reach into my belt, pull out two small vials. The liquid inside glows faint blue—a bioluminescent compound I’ve carried for decades. “Drink this.”
Ivalys takes the vial. Studies it with those calculating eyes, the gold flecks catching what little light filters through the temple’s cracked windows.
“What is it?”
“Night-sight. The tunnels are dark. Torches burn poorly—the air doesn’t support flame well. This will let you see enough for a short time to survive.”
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t demand explanations. Just uncorks the vial and drinks, grimacing at the taste. I do the same, feeling the familiar cold spread behind my eyes as the compound takes hold.
The darkness shifts. Gains depth. What was black becomes shades of gray and blue, the shadows separating into shapes I can navigate.
“Stay behind me.” I draw my axes. The weight of them fills my hands with familiar comfort.
Something flickers in her expression.
“I won’t let you handle any of this without me.”
I’ve fought alone for so long that the concept of someone staying seems foreign. Impossible.
Dangerous.
“The contract?—”
“Says I obey your commands.” She cuts me off, chin lifting in that stubborn way I’m learning to recognize. “You haven’t commanded me to abandon you.”
“Then don’t make me.”
We descend.
∗ ∗ ∗
The spiral stairs wind down and down and down. The temple’s foundations give way to older stone, then to something that isn’t stone at all. Bone.
The walls of the Debt Crypts are made of the recently dead.
Skulls stare from every surface—human, orc, things I can’t identify. Eye sockets track our movement without seeing. The floor is uneven, scattered with the possessions of those who fled here: dropped coins green with age, torn clothing, a child’s doll with its face worn smooth by hands long rotted to dust.
