TWENTY-TWO
RATHOK
Every step is agony.
My arm is broken in at least two places. Ribs cracked—I can feel them grinding when I breathe. Blood loss is making my vision swim, gray at the edges, darkness creeping in from the periphery. The shadow-curse in my blood screams for violence, for release, for anything that isn’t this slow crawl into darkness.
I’ve been hurt worse. Centuries of enforcing the Ledger Master’s will have taught me to fight through injuries that would kill lesser beings. But never like this. Never with stakes this high.
Ivalys keeps me moving.
Her shoulder braced under my good arm. Her body warm against my side. Her voice steady in my ear—encouragement, directions, the occasional curse when I stumble. She’s small, barely comes to my chest, but she holds me up with a strength that has nothing to do with muscle.
Her scent fills my nostrils with every step. Sweat and fear and beneath it—that warm, living smell I first caught in her brother’s apartment. The smell I drowned in when I buried my face in her neck. When her nails raked down my back and she cried my name into the dark.
Even now, broken and bleeding, my body responds to her nearness. The heat of her pressed against me. The way her fingers grip my armor like she’s afraid to let go.
Damn fool, woman.But the thought is tender. Awed. In two centuries, no one has ever risked themselves for me. No one has ever considered me worth saving.
The contract-paper shifts beneath us, treacherous and unstable, ready to swallow us whole. The deeper we go, the older the debts become. Centuries of obligation press against my skin, whispering terms I can barely understand.
“There.” Ivalys points toward a faint glow in the darkness below. “Do you see it?”
I do. A pulse of light, rhythmic and slow, emanating from the very bottom of the pit. It beats in time with my heart. With hers. With something older than either of us.
“The founding contract.” My voice is barely a rasp. “Has to be.”
We slide the final distance—a controlled fall down the paper slope, contracts scattering beneath us. I hit the bottom hard, pain flaring through my broken bones, and for a moment, the world goes white.
When my vision clears, I’m looking at the heart of everything.
Kelvor’s original bargain sits in a hollow carved from compressed debt. Ancient parchment, yellowed with age, its edges curling. The script that covers its surface isn’t ink—it’s blood. Still wet. Still glistening. After centuries, the blood that sealed this bargain refuses to dry.
Power radiates from the document. I feel it pressing against my skin, testing me, recognizing the enforcer’s marks I carried for so long. This is the source of everything. The original bargain. The first debt that spawned all others.
Ivalys reaches for it. I catch her wrist.
“Careful.” My grip is weak—I can barely hold on—but she stills. “Contract magic. Could be warded.”
She turns to look at me. In the faint glow of the contract, her face is all shadows and sharp angles. Beautiful. Fierce. Mine.
“I can’t lose you to a trap,” I add, softer. “Not now. Not after everything.”
Her expression shifts. Softens. She lifts my hand from her wrist and presses a kiss to my scarred knuckles—quick, fierce, a mirror of what she gave me when I woke.
“You won’t lose me.” Her voice carries certainty I don’t feel. “It is highly protected. But I can see it—the contract. He never expected anyone like me to find it. Never expected anyone like me to survive long enough to reach it.”
She picks up the ancient parchment.
Light flares—not from the document, but from her. Truth-fire, burning white, illuminating the pit in stark relief. The contracts surrounding us recoil, rustling away from the light like living things fleeing flame.
“Oh.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Oh, Rathok. Look at this.”
I drag myself closer. Force my eyes to focus on the blood-written words.
The terms are clear. Brutal in their simplicity. Kelvor Thaum signed this contract centuries ago—sold his soul to something darker than debt in exchange for power over all obligations, all promises, all bargains made within Gravebind’s walls. He became the Ledger Master. The Contract Lord. The Collector of Souls.
But there’s a clause. Buried in the fine print, written in letters so small, I can barely make them out. The loophole Madame Viscera spoke of.
