Nothing.
Nothing except?—
A single document pinned to the bedroom wall. Bone needle through parchment, holding it in place. The paper practically glows in the dim light, ink still wet, still shifting, still alive with the magic that made it.
The contract.
I shouldn’t touch it. I know better. Every child in Gravebind learns the same lesson before they learn to read: never touch a contract that isn’t yours. Never let debt magic know your name. Never give the Ledger a reason to notice you.
But Gror’s name is right there.
His signature in blood, dried brown against the yellowed parchment. His handwriting—I’d know it anywhere, that cramped scrawl he never bothered to improve—spelling out his name in the space provided for DEBTOR. And beneath it, terms that make my vision blur with rage and terror both.
He borrowed against everything.
His apartment. His possessions. His future earnings for the next thirty years. His freedom. Hislife.
All of it signed away for a sum that wouldn’t buy a decent meal in any district better than this one. All of it traded for promises I can see now were designed to fail—repayment schedules no honest work could meet, interest rates that double and triple in the fine print, penalty clauses that trigger automatically, inevitably.
He didn’t read it.The thought burns through me, hot and bitter.He didn’t read the terms. He just signed. He just?—
I reach for the contract.
The moment my fingers brush the paper, fire explodes through my palm.
I scream. Can’t help it. The pain sears through flesh and muscle and drives straight down to bone, writing itself into me, branding me with something I can feel taking shape beneath my skin. The contract crumbles to ash in my grip—the paper disintegrating, the ink evaporating, everything about it vanishing as if it were never there.
But the mark remains.
I crash backward, hitting the wall, sliding down it until I’m crouched on the floor with my hand cradled against my chest. Smoke rises from my palm. The smell of burning—meat, skin,me—fills the small room and makes my stomach lurch.
I force myself to look.
An angular symbol pulses in the center of my palm. The sigil is black as spilled ink, the lines sharp and precise, burned into my flesh with perfect clarity. It glows faintly—a sickly yellow light that pulses in rhythm with my racing heart.
I’ve been branded.
I’ve beenclaimed.
Tied to Gror’s debt—to whatever he owes, whatever he’s fled from, whatever nightmare he stumbled into that made him desperate enough to sign his soul away.
The room tilts. My vision swims. The pain in my hand has faded to a throbbing ache, but the fear—the fear is sharp as broken glass, cutting me from the inside out.
Mom. Mom, I’m sorry. I tried to keep him safe. I tried to?—
A shadow fills the doorway.
Massive. Still. Blocking what little light bleeds in from the landing, turning the apartment’s entrance into a rectangle of pure darkness.
I scramble backward. My spine hits the wall. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to use as a weapon, no escape route I didn’t notice on the way in. I’m trapped in a stripped-bare room with a door I can’t reach and a sigil burning on my palm.
The shadow steps inside.
And keeps stepping. And keeps going. Because whoever—whatever—just walked through that door is bigger than any human I’ve ever seen. Taller. Broader. Built from slabs of muscle that strain against black leather armor, shoulders wide enough to fill the doorway he just vacated.
An orc.
I’ve seen them before. Everyone in Gravebind has. The Ledger Master uses them as enforcers. I’ve observed them from a safe distance, noted the way they move through crowds that part like water before a blade.
