Chapter 13 Ivalys
THIRTEEN
IVALYS
The Marrow District earns its name.
We emerge from the safe room into streets paved with bone—actual bone, compressed and polished by generations of feet until it gleams pale in Gravebind’s eternal darkness.
The buildings here are the oldest in the city, leaning toward each other overhead like conspirators sharing secrets.
Some have tilted so far, their upper floors touch, creating bridges of rotting wood and crumbling stone.
Rathok moves through this labyrinth with unsettling familiarity.
“How do you know these routes?” I keep my voice low. The walls have ears in this city. Sometimes literally.
“I’ve been collecting debts here for a long time.” He doesn’t look back. “You learn the paths. The hiding places. The ways people try to run.”
I shove the thought away. Focus on moving. On breathing. On not dying before dawn.
We round a corner, and Rathok’s arm shoots out, slamming me back against the wall. His body blocks mine—massive, warm, a barrier between me and whatever he’s seen.
“Enforcers.” The word is barely a breath. “Two on the roof ahead. Another three at the intersection.”
I peer around his shoulder. He’s right. Dark figures move against the darker sky, their silhouettes unmistakable—the bulk of orcs, the gleam of axes. They’re not running. Not searching. Just waiting. Watching.
“They’re herding us.” The realization turns my stomach cold. “Pushing us in a specific direction.”
“The Ledger Master’s strategy. Let the prey tire itself out.” Rathok’s jaw flexes. “He knows we can’t leave the city. He knows we have until dawn. He’s content to wait.”
“So let’s go where they don’t expect.”
His gaze cuts to me. Sharp. Assessing.
“Down.” I point at the bone pavement beneath our feet. “Back into the crypts.”
“The wraiths—“
“Are less dangerous than five enforcers with orders to bring me in.” I hold his gaze. “You killed six wraiths in the tunnels. Can you kill five of your former colleagues without making noise?”
Something flickers across his features—not quite a smile, but close.
“This way.”
He leads me down a set of stairs I didn’t notice before, into a black void that swallows us whole.
? ? ?
The tunnels beneath the Marrow District are different from the ones we traveled before.
Older. The walls here have been crushed beyond recognition—no individual skulls, no separate bones. Just a smooth, dark surface, petrified by centuries of pressure into something that feels more like obsidian than remains.
Rathok moves ahead, his night-sight letting him navigate while I keep one hand on the wall, the other reaching for his back. The bone is cold beneath my fingers.
I think of the contract in Gror’s apartment. The burning pain when I touched it. The sigil that seared itself into my palm.
“I didn’t see anything on Gror’s contract on the wall. I just felt it burn.”
“Your gift was dormant. Locked away—whether by instinct or by your mother’s design, I don’t know.” The sound of him testing the air, checking for threats. “When you touched the contract, something woke up. But seeing—truly seeing the lies in a contract—that takes focus. Intent.”
“How do I learn?”
My mother. Fortune-teller. Liar. Truth-speaker. Protector.
Murdered.
“She found the fraud in their contracts and spoke it into nothing.”
“Did you ever try to stop her?” The question comes out sharper than I intend. “When you were hunting debtors she was freeing.”
Silence. Long enough that I think he won’t answer.
“I was ordered to. Once.” His voice goes flat. Careful. “A debtor she’d freed. The Ledger Master wanted him reclaimed—an example to others who might think truth-speaking could save them.”
“What happened?”
“I found him. Brought him back.” He turns away. “He died in the Hall. The Ledger Master made sure everyone knew that voided contracts could be reinstated. That freedom was temporary.”
My stomach turns. “So you undid my mother’s work.”
“I did what I was ordered to do. I followed my contract.” His boot scuffs against stone. “I told myself that was enough. That obedience absolved me of the outcome.”
“Did it?”
“No.” The word is quiet. Final. “It never does.”
We walk in silence for a long moment. The passage narrows, then widens. The compressed bone of the walls gives way to something rougher—natural stone, maybe, or whatever lies beneath even the graves.
“And he killed her for it.”
“He tried to kill her before that. Multiple times. She was too careful, too hidden. But then she did something reckless.” His voice darkens.
“What stopped her? Why didn’t she finish it?”
“I don’t know.” He turns a corner. I follow blindly. “I don’t exactly know how she was a threat to him.”
Rage burns in my chest. Cold and clean and sharp.
“We have to finish whatever she started.”
Rathok stops. I nearly collide with his back—catch myself with both hands against his armor, feeling his heat through the leather.
“There’s a problem.” His voice is low. Careful. “Your mother trained her gift from childhood. She had years of practice, guidance from other truth-speakers, time to understand what she was. You have—“
“Hours.”
“Less than that.” He turns. In the gloom, I make out his shape—massive, solid, close.
“You don’t think I can do it.”
Silence. Long enough that I feel my heart sink.
“I think you’re the only one who can.” His voice drops. Roughens. “The Ledger Master felt it—felt you—across the entire city. If anyone can speak truth to bring him down, it’s you.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know if strength is enough without control.”
I step closer. The tunnel is narrow here—barely wide enough for both of us—and my movement brings me flush against him. Chest to chest.
“Let’s find another way.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “My mother was self-taught, too, wasn’t she? Before she found the other truth-speakers. Before she learned how to hide. She figured it out on her own.”
“She had time.”
“I have motivation.” I reach up. Find his jaw in the darkness. The rough texture of his skin beneath my fingers. “The Ledger Master murdered my mother. He trapped my brother. He wants to cage me and use my gift to enslave this entire city. I don’t need time. I need to stop him.”
He sucks in a harsh breath. I feel it against my palm—the sudden stillness, the way his whole body goes taut.
“Ivalys—“
“Keep moving.” I drop my hand. Step back into the shadows.
A moment of silence. Then he turns, and we continue.