“Give that to me.” He moves toward me—too fast, too fluid, his body flowing rather than walking. “Give it to me now, and I’ll release your brother. I’ll void your debt. I’ll let you walk out of this room alive.”
“Lies.” The word resonates with power I’m only beginning to understand. “You can’t let me go. You’re too afraid of what I might become.”
He flinches. Actually flinches. My gift shows me the truth—the fear buried beneath centuries of power, the desperate terror of a being who knows his time is ending.
“Your mother said something similar.” His voice hardens. “Right before I killed her.”
The words hit me like a blade. But I don’t buckle. Don’t break. My mother died fighting this creature. Died trying to free Gravebind from his grip. I won’t let her sacrifice mean nothing.
“You didn’t kill her.” The truth rises in me, burning to be spoken. “You had her murdered. By contract. By proxy. Because you were too afraid to face her directly. Too afraid of what she might say over your precious founding bargain.”
Ink sprays from his mouth. “You know nothing?—”
“I know the truth.” I hold up the contract, and the blood-script blazes. “I know you were a scribe. Brilliant, yes. But ordinary. And you couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t bear being one person among millions, no matter how talented. So you sold your soul for power you didn’t earn, and you’ve spent centuries convincing yourself you deserved it.
“My mother cracked your foundation.” I step forward, the contract blazing in my hands. “I’m going to finish what she started.”
“KILL HER!” The Ledger Master’s scream echoes through the room. “ALL OF YOU—KILL HER NOW!”
The enforcers surge forward. Gror lurches into motion, his contract-controlled body responding to the command, reachingfor me with hands that used to ruffle my hair and steal food from my plate.
I have seconds. Less than seconds.
I look at the contract. At the terms written in blood that refuse to dry. At the loophole buried in the fine print—the clause that could finish this.
And I open my mouth to speak truth.
“IVALYS!”
Rathok explodes from the pit behind me.
He shouldn’t be able to move. Shouldn’t be able to stand, let alone fight. His arm is broken. His ribs are shattered. He’s lost enough blood to kill three ordinary men. But he’s on his feet, one axe in his good hand, blood streaming from wounds. He crashes into the nearest enforcers, scattering them like leaves, his roar shaking the paper-covered walls.
He fights like the monster they made him. Like the weapon he was forged to be. But he fights for me now. For us. For a future neither of us dared to imagine before all this.
“DON’T STOP!” His voice carries over the chaos. “SPEAK THE TRUTH!”
Gror reaches me. His hands close around my throat.
I look into my brother’s contract-filled eyes—and I see him. Still there. Still fighting.
His grip tightens. My air cuts off. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision.
The founding contract burns in my hands. The blood-script writhes, trying to escape my gift, trying to flee what it knows is coming.
I have one chance. One breath. One truth to speak.
Not the loophole about the world owing him nothing. That truth is part of it, yes. But it’s not enough. Not complete.
The deeper truth. The one that will shatter his foundation.
I choose my words.
“The world...” I force the words past Gror’s grip, my voice barely a whisper, “...owes you...” Truth-fire blazes from my palm, burning into the contract. “...nothing. You were never cheated. Never wronged. Never owed greatness.” The words pour out, unstoppable now. “You were ordinary. And ordinary was never a sin that needed punishment.”
The Ledger Master screams.
The founding contract detonates.
Light—pure, white, truth incarnate—tears through the room. I feel it rip through my body, through Gror’s grip, through the contracts covering my brother’s skin. The blood-written terms ignite, burning from within, centuries of obligation consumed in an instant.
Gror’s hands fall away from my throat.
The enforcers collapse, their binding contracts voided.
And the Ledger Master—the Contract Lord, the Collector of Souls, the thing that murdered my mother and enslaved my brother and tried to bind my gift?—
The Ledger Master begins to come apart.
∗ ∗ ∗
