Chapter 18 #2
In the far corner, a woman in a charcoal-gray jacket startled so violently that her pencil skittered across her notepad and clattered to the floor.
She wore thick-rimmed glasses that had slipped down her nose, and she'd been taking notes with the sort of focused intensity that suggested she was trying to become invisible.
Now she scrambled to retrieve the fallen pencil, her face flushing a deep, mortified red as she attempted to shrink even further into her corner.
“Excuse me,” said a man across the table, his voice a perfect blend of false civility and unearned confidence. This nameplate read: Councilman Darren Swale. He had the look of someone permanently caught mid-electrocution, with white hair sticking out at wild angles.
He hammered a hand on the table with gusto and sniffed, pointing an accusatory finger at Splice. “Are you going to leave of your own accord, or should we call security to throw you out? You’re not recognized here.”
Splice, silently congratulating himself for not leaping across the table and biting off the man’s finger, simply turned his gaze toward the figure at the head of the table.
“Actually, Councilman Swale…” The lawyer cleared his throat and immediately shrank in his chair as every head in the room snapped toward him. “That’s not… entirely true.”
Splice had the brief, icy satisfaction of watching the self-important councilman’s mouth fall open, stunned into silence.
“What?” sputtered a plump woman further down the table, her nameplate proclaiming Councilwoman Priya Mishra.
The lawyer cleared his throat again, a weak, papery sound.
“I apologize, Councilwoman Mishra. As I was just about to mention before Mister—er—” he flapped a hand vaguely in Splice’s direction, clearly unwilling to assign him a name or title. Splice gave a single, small nod.
“Before this gentleman arrived,” the lawyer continued, voice tight with effort, “there was… a contingency clause. Added to Mr. Truckenham’s will approximately seven months ago.”
Splice leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers beneath his nose. He’d seen that once in a television show. He liked it. He liked it even more now that he finally had cause to use it, as it seemed to land as an elegant sign of dominance as effectively as it had on screen.
The lawyer pressed on, sweat now visibly collecting along his hairline. “Instructions for his other assets remain the same, but there is an exception that pertains specifically to his majority share in the Green Holdings.”
He paused, adjusting a page that didn’t need adjusting. “One that applies in the event of his death by… unnatural causes.”
There was an audible intake of breath around the table.
“That can’t be,” snapped Councilwoman Mishra, her voice sharp as glass. “If one of us dies, their share defaults back to the trust. Equal redistribution among the remaining members. That’s how it was set up.”
“That was irrevocable!” barked Councilwoman Idris.
“Yes, that would normally be correct,” the lawyer said, dabbing at his forehead with a trembling hand. “But because Mr. Truckenham held the majority share, it placed him in a different legal category.”
He rustled through a stack of papers and winced as one slipped free and fluttered to the floor. “That’s lined out under the Binding Stakeholder Provision from the original agreement, section thirteen, subsection nine.”
“What the hells does that mean?” spluttered Councilman Swale, his voice rising into an unflattering register.
The lawyer looked like he wanted to vanish into his own briefcase. “It means that because of his majority stake, he had the legal right to designate an outside successor for his share if his death occurred under magical duress or criminal circumstance.”
In unison, every head in the room turned to Splice.
With slow, deliberate precision, he raised one eyebrow. It was just as effective as the finger-steepling. Maybe more, based on the susurration of surprise and unease that whispered around the table in response.
He was not surprised, of course. This was exactly what the letter had said: a summons to the new majority shareholder of the Green Holdings to discuss next steps, legal realignments, and whatever civic absurdities followed the death of a stakeholder.
Splice had been too angry and flushed with bark-splitting resentment and his god’s pain to dwell on the implications.
But now, slightly removed from the heat of it, watching the trustees flail and sputter around the table like startled livestock… he found himself rather enjoying the whole situation.
Councilwoman Idris gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Swale started blustering, his voice pitched too high with indignation.
Voices layered over each other like competing incantations.
In the corner, the mousy woman’s face had gone sheet white, her pencil clutched so tightly between fingers that it snapped in two.
Councilwoman Mishra looked ready to either storm out or sink to the floor in a faint.
Splice tuned out the noise as the lawyer cringingly slid a folder across the table. He flipped it open, eyes skimming past the ornamental formatting and bloated legalese until they caught on the clause that mattered.
In the event of my passing by magical or suspicious cause, I hereby name the Thornfather (also known as the Root-Hollow Crown, the Verdant Sovereign, and the Last Witness of the Old Pact) as recipient of my full stake and legal steward of the Green Holdings, including but not limited to my majority share, access rights, historical protections, ritual purview, and standing vote on rezoning and development under the trust charter, version 3B.
No ambiguity. No legal loopholes. No civic slight-of-hand. The majority of the Green Holdings belonged, now, to Mycor.
“What’s he going to do with it?” Councilwoman Mishra snapped, voice cutting clean through the din. “Grow moss on the sidewalk? He’s a fertility spirit, not a landowner.”
The realization hit Splice like a dropped stone through water as the lawyer’s words rang suddenly in his head: added approximately seven months ago.
Quickly, he did the math. That had been sometime in October.
The same time Mycor, who only stirred for births and deaths, awoke in the atrium of Greymarket Towers.
Truckenham’s added clause hadn’t merely cracked open a civic headache. The laying of it on paper had unlatched something older, rousing a slumbering god and shackling him with civic chains.
The voices of the council suddenly became as unbearable as a swarm of bees.
I need space, Splice thought frantically. I need to breathe and find out what hells I’ve walked into.
“This is an outrage!” Councilwoman Mishra snapped. “We meet with Ashenvale Ventures tomorrow, and now this clause drops into our laps? Another claimant? This is unprecedented! It will turn everything on its head!”
The room erupted.
“We stand to lose billions—”
“—Ashenvale will gut the contract if we can’t deliver a clean transfer—”
“—then what do we have left? A rotting green space and a pile of lawsuits—”
“Gods damn it, Marlow!” someone shouted, head in their hands.
Swale was bellowing at the lawyer now, his face mottled red. “Fix it! You’re supposed to fix these things! What are we paying you for?”
The lawyer wilted under the barrage, shrinking lower and lower in his chair, sweat streaking down his temples as if he longed to sink through the floor itself.
Splice rose slowly to his feet. The air shifted with him, threaded with a low vibration that seemed to come from the stone floor itself. Conversation guttered out, and words strangled in throats.
“Thank you for your attention,” he said. The ceremonial register of his tone was not loud, but it landed with the gravity of stone, each syllable a carefully placed weight.
The hush became absolute.
“In my capacity as the Assistant of the Thornfather, recognized by this city’s magical charter and witnessed by legal affidavit as the successor and majority stakeholder of the Green Holdings, I hereby assert his lawful right to veto any and all proceedings related to the sale or rezoning of said lands.
All negotiations with Ashenvale Ventures are terminated, effective immediately.
Any further actions are null, pending a full, independent magical audit of the land’s health. ”
For a heartbeat the silence held.
Then, the humans roared. They always did when it came to the land.
Always trying to tame it, to parcel it into smaller and smaller slivers, to wield it for their own bidding.
And oh, how they raged when they were thwarted, as if earth itself were nothing but a tool to be conquered, reshaped in their image.
“This is an illegal seizure!” Mishra shrieked, her voice cracking with fury. “We’ll fight this in every court, magical and mundane!”
“You’re welcome to file a challenge, Councilwoman,” the lawyer said, his voice tight. “But Truckenham’s will was notarized and magically verified. There is nothing more I can do.”
Splice had heard enough. Better the empty corridors than one more breath in this hive of fear and greed. He rose, his movement sharp and final.
“Wait!” A smaller voice broke through the din. The mousy woman at the far end of the table pushed to her feet, glasses sliding down her nose as she clutched the edge of the table. “Assistant—please, wait—”
He shook his head and turned away. Each boot-fall struck the marble like a gavel. The building’s acoustics made his departure sound like judgment, but he did not care.
He needed distance. From the spiraling chaos that stank of politics. From the hole Marlow Truckenham’s death had torn in the land and in his god.
And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that holes never stayed empty for long.