Page 87 of Orc's Bargain
THIRTY-SIX
IVALYS
They gather around me without being asked.
The vault has emptied now—the truth-speakers guided to the surface, to the healer’s ward, to whatever temporary shelter the city can provide. But word has spread. The truth-speaker who killed the Ledger Master. The woman who spoke truth over the contract-heart and sent three centuries of stolen debts screaming back to their thief.
They come in ones and twos. Some I recognize from the vault—the elderly woman I steadied, the young man I guided to the healers, the child whose screaming I stopped. Others are strangers, truth-speakers who’ve been hiding in Gravebind for years, surviving in the shadows the way my mother taught me to survive.
They’re scared. Confused. Desperately in need of guidance.
They look at me like I have answers.
I don’t. I’m twenty-four years old, raised in hiding, trained by circumstance rather than instruction. Days ago, I was a bookshop clerk whose biggest worry was paying rent. Now I’m standing in the ruins of a contract lord’s domain, surrounded by people who expect me to lead them.
The fear threatens to choke me. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know how to be what they need.
A hand finds mine. Large. Warm. Scarred from two centuries of violence.
Rathok moves to stand with me. Not behind, where a protector would stand. Not in front, where a leader would. At my shoulder. Equal. Partner.
“You’ve got this.” His voice is a low rumble, pitched for my ears alone. “I’ve seen you face worse.”
“I faced worse with you.”
“Still do.” He squeezes my hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The fear doesn’t vanish. But it quiets. Becomes manageable. I’m not doing this alone. I have Rathok at my side, Gror watching from the shadows, and a gift that’s burned in my palm since I touched my brother’s contract.
I step forward. Face the gathered truth-speakers.
“My name is Ivalys Vane.” My voice carries in the sudden silence. “I’m the daughter of Maren Vane, who some of you knew. Who fought the Ledger Master fifteen years ago and died protecting people who needed her.”
Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Recognition in some faces. Grief in others. My mother left marks on this city that I’m only beginning to understand.
“The Ledger Master is dead.” I let the words land. Watch them sink in. “His fraudulent contracts are voided. His stasis chambers are empty. The power he held over Gravebind—over all of us—is broken.”
Silence. Then whispers. Hope and fear tangling in the space between heartbeats.
“But his death doesn’t mean we’re safe.” I continue. “Other powers will try to fill the space. Other contract lords will see opportunity. And we—” I gesture at the crowd, at myself, at the gift that binds us all. “We’re targets. Truth-speakers have beenhunted for three centuries. That won’t change just because the Ledger Master is gone.”
“Then what do we do?” A voice from the crowd. The young man from the vault, his eyes hollow but his stance determined. “Hide again? Run?”
“No.” The word comes out fierce. Certain. “My mother hid. My mother ran. My mother spent her whole life being invisible, and in the end, it didn’t save her.” I lift my marked hand. Let the sigil’s glow pulse for all to see. “I’m done hiding. I’m done being invisible.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“We fight.” I look around the crowd. At truth-speakers young and old, scared and determined, broken and healing. “We train. We organize. We build something the Ledger Master tried to destroy—a community of truth-speakers who protect each other, who use our gift to free the exploited and expose the fraudulent.”
“You want us to become enforcers?” Suspicion in that voice. Understandable.
“I want us to become something new.” I feel Rathok’s hand tighten on mine. Feel his presence at my shoulder, solid and warm and fiercely reassuring. “Not enforcers who collect debts, but speakers who tell truths. We can rewrite the contract system from the inside. Fair bargains. Honest debts. A city where promises mean something besides predation.”
Silence stretches. Long enough that I start to wonder if I’ve misjudged—if they’ll turn away, scatter, go back to hiding because that’s what they know.
Then the elderly woman steps forward. The one I caught when she stumbled. She studies me with eyes that have seen too much, survived too long.
“I knew your mother.” Her voice is a whisper, rough with decades of disuse. “She said once—” A pause. A breath. “She said someday a truth-speaker would rise who could do what shecouldn’t. Who could speak truth over the whole city and make it listen.”
