Free.
I’m free.
She’s mine. The certainty of it drives me deeper. I bury my face in her neck, my thrusts becoming erratic, desperate. She’s close again—I can feel it in the way she tightens around me, the way her nails draw blood from my shoulders.
“Come with me.” Her voice in my ear. Command and plea. “Rathok?—“
I let go.
We shatter at the same moment—her cry and my roar twining in the silent chamber, our bodies locked, our pleasure cresting in a wave that drowns everything else. The sigil between us blazes white-hot. For one endless moment, I feel her gift wrap around my soul, examine it, and find it?—
Worthy.
True.
Hers.
∗ ∗ ∗
Afterward, we lie tangled on the leather and bone-stone.
I should be cold. The Forsworn Deep is frigid, the air thin and biting. But with her body pressed against mine, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin—I’m warm. Warmer than I’ve been in years. Decades. Maybe ever.
The blue light from Madame Viscera’s vial casts soft shadows across us. In its glow, Ivalys looks almost ethereal—dark hair spread across my shoulder, skin flushed, lips swollen from my kisses. Beautiful in a way that tightens my throat.
“The contracts.” Her voice is drowsy. Sated. “When we—at the end—I felt them. Burning away.”
“The last of the Ledger Master’s chains.” I tighten my arm around her. “Your gift voided them. Declared them fraudulent.Declared me—“ I pause. Search for the word. “Declared me yours.”
She lifts her head. Studies my face in the dim blue light. “Are you? Mine?”
The question should terrify me. Ownership, possession, belonging to someone—those are the things I’ve fought against since I signed my first contract. The things I’ve watched destroy debtors, consume souls, turn people into tools.
But this doesn’t feel like chains. This feels like choosing. Like finally finding something worth giving myself to.
“Yes.”
She smiles. Not the fierce grin of battle or the sharp smile of challenge—something softer. Something I’ve never seen on her face before.
“Good.” She settles back against my chest. “Because you’re stuck with me now.”
I don’t tell her that’s exactly what I want. Don’t need to. She already knows.
We lie in silence. Our breath finding the same rhythm. Hearts slowing in unison. The pressing quiet of the deep catacombs surrounds us, but it doesn’t feel oppressive anymore. It feels protective. A cocoon of bone and darkness, sheltering us from the chaos above.
“We should move soon.” I don’t want to say it. Don’t want to break this fragile peace we’ve found. “Dawn is?—“
Ivalys goes rigid.
“Ivalys?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s staring at her arm—the one marked with contract script, the one that’s been tracking her debt since the apartment.
I sit up, pulling her with me. Watch as the message sears itself into her flesh, letter by letter, line by line.
Ivalys’s face has gone pale. Her hands are shaking.
“He knows where we are.” Her voice is hollow. “He’s been watching. The whole time, he’s been?—“
