TWENTY-THREE
IVALYS
The climb nearly kills us both.
The paper shifts with every movement, sliding beneath our feet, threatening to send us tumbling back to the bottom. I can’t count how many times we fall—short drops, five feet, ten feet, clawing at contracts to slow our descent before struggling upward again. My arms burn. My legs shake. My lungs heave for air that tastes of ink and decay.
Rathok is worse.
He’s lost too much blood. His face has gone gray, his movements sluggish, each step requiring effort that would break a lesser being. But he keeps going. Keeps climbing. The founding contract is tucked against his chest, held in place by his broken arm pressed to his body.
I asked him to carry it. My gift flares whenever I touch the thing, blazing white and impossible to hide—a beacon in the darkness, announcing our location to anyone watching. He can hold it without triggering the light. Without alerting the Ledger Master to what we’ve found.
“Talk to me.” I grab a fistful of contracts, haul myself up another few feet. “Stay awake.”
“About what?” His voice is barely audible. Each word an effort.
“Anything. Tell me—” I reach for the next handhold. Miss. Try again. “Tell me what happens after this. When the Ledger Master is dead.”
He’s quiet so long. I think he’s passed out. Then he says, “Gravebind will need rebuilding. The contract system. The debts.”
His lips brush my hair. A ghost of a kiss. “Stay close to me when we reach the top.” The words are barely a whisper
I nod against his shoulder. Breathe him in—blood and sweat and the deeper scent of him I’ve come to crave.
We climb in silence after that. There’s no breath to spare for more words.
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time loses meaning in the dark. There’s only the next handhold, the next step, the strain of muscles pushed past endurance. The glow above grows slowly brighter—the room’s contract-light seeping down into the pit, guiding us upward.
When we finally reach the underside of the floor, I’m shaking so badly, I can barely grip the paper. Rathok is barely conscious, moving on instinct, his body continuing when his mind has likely shut down.
“Here.” I press my palm against the floor above us—the polished bone that sealed itself after we fell. The sigil on my hand warms. “This is where we came through.”
“The contract.” Rathok’s voice is a thread of sound. He pulls the founding document from against his chest, holds it out to me. “Take it. Be ready.”
I take it.
Light erupts the moment my fingers touch the parchment. White brilliance blazes through the pit, through the floor above us, announcing our presence to everyone in the room. I hearscreaming—the Ledger Master’s voice, high and furious, and beneath it Gror’s tortured cry.
“Now.” Rathok braces himself against the paper slope. “Open the floor. I’ll push you through.”
I speak the truth. “This floor was opened. It can open again.”
The contracts unravel. The seam tears wide. Light pours down—the yellowish glow of the room, blinding after so long in darkness. I have a heartbeat to brace myself before Rathok’s hand closes around my arm and hurls me upward.
I explode from the floor.
The scene that greets me is chaos. Gror stands frozen mid-stride, his contract-covered body rigid, reaching toward a spot where I no longer stand. The contracts on his skin writhe and pulse, responding to the disruption of my return. Enforcers cluster near the walls, uncertain, their empty gazes flicking between me and their master. And the Ledger Master?—
The Ledger Master stares at me with something approaching horror.
He’s changed since I fell. The refined scholar’s mask has slipped further. Ink streams from his lips in continuous rivulets now, spattering his robes, pooling on the floor. His parchment-pale eyes are wide, the contract-text within them scrolling faster than ever—frantic calculations, desperate contingencies, plans unraveling.
No. Not at me. At what I’m holding.
“That’s not possible.” Ink streams from his lips, spattering the floor. His composure has cracked—the refined scholar’s mask slipping to reveal the thing beneath. “No one can survive the Vault. No one can find?—”
“Your founding contract.” I hold up the ancient parchment. The blood-script glows in my grip, white light illuminating terms he’s hidden for centuries. “The bargain that made you what you are.”
