Beneath all that power, all that composure, all those centuries of accumulated souls—he’s shaking. His contracts are riddled with fear-clauses, contingencies for exactly this moment,desperate measures designed to contain a threat he’s been dreading for fifteen years.
This entire trap—Gror’s debt, my awakening, the seven-day window—none of it was about capturing me. It was about getting me to surrender. To give up my gift willingly.
Because he can’t take it by force.
My mother wounded him. Cracked his foundation. And he’s been running scared ever since, hunting down every truth-speaker he could find, making sure none of them ever got strong enough to finish what she started.
“You’re afraid.” The words come out quiet. Certain. My voice carries that resonance I’m starting to recognize—the power of truth-speaking, bleeding into ordinary speech. “You didn’t orchestrate this because you wanted a weapon. You did it because you knew my power was waking. Because you knew that if I ever spoke truth over your founding contract?—“
“Enough.” The Ledger Master’s composure cracks. Just for an instant. Just enough to show the thing beneath the mask—ancient, hungry, desperately afraid. “You will bind yourself to me. Willingly. Or your brother will kill you where you stand.”
Gror steps forward. His hands rise toward my throat.
I don’t run.
I look into my brother’s contract-filled eyes and search for him—for the boy who used to make me laugh until I couldn’t breathe, who dreamed too big and loved too hard, who signed a terrible contract because he wanted to be the one protecting me for once.
“Gror.” His name feels different on my tongue. Heavier. More real. “I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me.”
His hands close around my throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Waiting for the command.
“I’m not going to surrender.” I hold his empty gaze, speak directly to whatever part of him remains. “I’m going to destroythe thing that did this to you. I’m going to burn every contract in this hall. And then, I’m going to bring you home.”
For one instant—one frozen, endless instant—something flickers in those contract-filled eyes.
Recognition.
“Kill her.” The Ledger Master’s voice is sharp. Panicked. “Kill her now!”
Gror’s hands tighten.
But not around my throat.
His fingers close around the contract-script crawling across his own arms—tearing at it, ripping, trying to peel away the words that bind him. He screams—a sound that’s half human and half something else, raw anguish that echoes through the hall.
“KILL HER!” The Ledger Master screams. Ink pours from his mouth, spatters across the floor. “OBEY ME!”
Gror drops to his knees. The contracts fight back—rewriting themselves, multiplying, covering the places he’s torn away. But for this moment, this precious moment, he’s fighting. My brother is in there, clawing his way to the surface.
“Ivy.” My brother’s voice—broken, barely recognizable, but his. “The Vault. Rathok. The founding contract. It’s down there. It’s?—“
The contracts surge up his throat, cutting off his words. His body convulses, and when he looks at me again, the emptiness has returned. The brief window of consciousness slams shut.
But he gave me what I needed.
Directly below is the Vault. Where Rathok fell. Madame Viscera said the Vault was through the throne room.
If Rathok survives the fall—and he will, he has to, orcs are stubborn—he’ll find it. He’ll understand. He’s spent centuries learning how contracts work, how they can be broken.
All I have to do is get to him.
The Ledger Master’s composure is gone. He stares at Gror—at me—with something approaching horror. “That’s not possible. He shouldn’t be able to?—“
“He loves me.” I step back from my brother’s kneeling form. “And love is stronger than your contracts. Stronger than your magic. Stronger than all your accumulated power.”
“SEIZE HER!” The Ledger Master’s scream echoes through the hall. “ALL OF YOU—SEIZE HER NOW!”
The enforcers move.
