Chapter 23 Ivalys
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 hear screaming—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.”
“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, reaching for 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.
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