A human—older, scarred, his contract-marks faded to near-invisibility. He moves fast despite his age, decades of training evident in every motion. His hand closes around my arm like a shackle.
“Hold still, truth-speaker.” His voice is flat. Empty. “This doesn’t have to hurt.”
I don’t struggle against his grip. Instead, I press my marked palm against his chest.
The sigil blazes.
“You didn’t choose this.”
The words carry power I’m only beginning to understand. Truth-speaking—not breaking contracts, but revealing what lies beneath them. The enforcer gasps. The contracts on his skin flare bright, then dim, then smoke.
He didn’t choose this. None of them did. They were desperate, or hungry, or running from something worse. They signed contracts they didn’t understand because the Ledger Master made sure they didn’t understand. And now they serve because the alternative is worse than death.
The enforcer releases me. Steps back. His eyes—human eyes, finally human—fill with something I recognize.
Horror. At what he’s done. At what he’s been.
I don’t stop to comfort him. Can’t stop. Rathok is ten feet away, covered in contracts, dying.
The second enforcer is an orc. Younger than Rathok by at least a century, his skin a lighter green, his tusks shorter. He swings a mace at my head.
I duck. Barely. The weapon whistles past my ear, close enough to stir my hair. He recovers fast, reversing the swing, bringing the mace around for a second strike.
I don’t have time for truth-speaking. Don’t have time for anything but survival.
Something massive slams into the orc enforcer from the side.
Rathok.
He’s on his feet somehow—on his knees, at least, contracts still crawling across his body, his movements jerky and wrong. But he’s fighting. One arm hangs useless, claimed by the debts trying to consume him. The other holds his axe.
The younger orc goes down hard. Rathok follows him, axe rising and falling, the blade finding the gap between helmet and gorget. Blood sprays. The enforcer twitches. Goes still.
“Rathok—” I reach for him. My hand finds his shoulder. The contracts writhe beneath my palm, hot and wrong and hungry.
His head turns. His eyes meet mine.
They’re still ember-dark. Still him. But the light is fading. The contracts are winning.
“Run.” The word is a growl forced through clenched teeth. “Can’t... hold them... much longer.”
“I’m not running.” I grab his face. Cup his jaw in both hands, the sigil on my palm burning against the contracts covering his skin. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Ivalys.” My name is a rasp. A prayer. “Please.”
Another enforcer closes in. Rathok surges upward, intercepting the attack meant for me. His axe catches the blade. Deflects it. His return strike opens the enforcer from hip to shoulder.
He falls to one knee. The contracts surge across his face, covering his eyes, trying to seal them shut.
Two more enforcers. Three. They circle us, weapons raised, waiting for an opening.
Rathok rises again. Fighting. Refusing to stop. His axe finds another throat, another belly. Blood sprays—his enemies’, his own. The contracts drag him down after each kill. He drags himself back up.
Four enforcers dead. Five. The contracts claim more of him with every strike.
