The bundle bled through the cloth as if it still had a pulse.
The Marshal set it down in the Office chamber without flinching. The wheat stalks inside had been bound so tight with red thread they bent instead of breaking. A candle stub lay balanced across them. The wax had melted once and hardened crooked, the wick burned short.
"Third debt," she said. Her voice was even, her eyes sharp. "Whoever left it wanted no doubt."
The room was already full. Slate-coated Archivists stood shoulder to shoulder, their quills tucked into ledgers. Three nobles lingered at the far wall, their rings flashing whenever they moved their hands. A priest of the High Flame sat stiff-backed near the table, robes clean and heavy with incense. Everyone's eyes landed on the bundle, then on Teren Vale.
The torc at his throat answered before anyone else could. It thrummed low, steady, like an anvil struck from inside his skin. Not painful. Worse. Confident. His scar heated under the metal, and the hum made his teeth ache.
Enter.
Teren shut his mouth tight. He stared at the bundle. "What does it want?"
The Archivist with the blackwood box stepped forward. He opened it slow, set the cloudy mirror flat on the table, and angled it toward Teren's throat. The glass fogged almost instantly. Words etched themselves across the mist from underneath, clean strokes carved by no visible hand.
SHAPE.
Neris shifted closer, braid sliding over her shoulder. Her healer's satchel clinked at her side. "Shape of what?"
The mirror changed. New letters cut through the fog.
BELONG.
Serin Haldrin leaned against the window frame, polished boots crossed at the ankle. His uniform looked pressed straight out of a temple carving. His mouth tilted into the kind of smile that made people want to hit him. "It wants him to admit what everyone can see," he said smoothly. "Vale is the Crown's Vessel. Belong, and the debts are paid."
Brann Sedge's hands curled into fists the size of bricks. "You'd like that," he said.
Serin didn't deny it.
The Marshal tapped the table once, hard enough to claim silence. "No one says anything binding in this room. Not in anger. Not in pride. Not by trick. Alon, keep him steady."
Neris's pale eyes flicked to Teren. "Anchor words if it pushes. Don't wait for me to remind you."
The torc pulsed again, heavier now. Heat and cold mingled along the scar under the iron until his breath caught. He gritted his teeth.
The priest stood, tall and sharp in his robes. "The debts are unfolding in order. First attention, second blood, now shape. It is the Crown's will. Refusal is not only dangerous—it is sin."
"Sit down," the Marshal said.
The priest didn't. "You endanger us all by pretending this can be resisted. The Vessel—"
"Sit," she repeated, harder.
He sat.
The mirror fogged once more. New letters appeared, carved deeper, slower, as though the air itself resisted them.
NAME.
The torc pressed tight around Teren's throat, scar stretching under the band. He felt the word press under his tongue, a voice that wasn't his own.
Say Vale belongs. Say Vessel belongs.
He forced air into his lungs until his chest hurt. "No," he said, voice low.
The mirror blurred, cleared again.
REFUSAL NOTED. ESCALATION BEGINS.
The bundle cracked.
The wheat stalks split down their length like hollow reeds. From inside wriggled thin gray threads, slick as worms. They writhed across the table, dragging themselves toward Teren.
The nobles gasped. One stepped back until his rings clinked against stone. The priest made a sign against fire and failed to finish it.
Brann yanked his knife free, blade broad and plain.
"Don't cut them," the Marshal warned. "Cutting binds what they touch."
The threads reached the torc. The iron thrummed, hungry. The gray tendrils sank into the metal and vanished without a mark.
For a breath, silence. Then the torc shifted.
The smooth iron ridges lifted, jagged, reshaping into teeth that curved upward. Not just a collar now. A half-formed crown.
Gasps spread again, sharper this time. Even the Archivists looked up from their ledgers. Serin's smile stretched thin and dangerous.
The torc hummed louder, a steady beat that pressed against the scar like a hand closing.
Enter. Belong.
Neris's voice cut through, calm and direct. "Anchor, Teren. Three words. Now."
He shut his eyes and spoke between clenched teeth. "Rain on tin. Rope through a pulley. Apples in summer."
The iron throbbed once, hard, angry. Then steadied. The crown-teeth stayed, sharp ridges gleaming faint in the lamplight.
The Archivist dipped his quill. "Third debt claimed. Shape taken."
"Not by me," Teren snapped. His voice came out raw.
The Archivist's quill didn't pause.
⸻
By dusk, the city looked different.
Circles appeared on doors and walls all over the lower wards. Seven strokes, one missing. Under each, a fresh red scrawl: BELONG OR BURN.
Crowds gathered in corners, whispering louder than they should. Teren's name mixed with the word Vessel until the two were inseparable. Nobles muttered about riots. Priests muttered about blasphemy. Merchants muttered about lost trade.
Inside the Office, guards doubled at every entrance. Archivists moved like blackbirds, filling ledgers with faster hands. The boy from Grain Lane slept in an alcove two floors down, Neris checking his pulse every hour. Brann barely left Teren's side. The Marshal didn't sit unless she had to.
The torc thrummed at odd times now—while Teren breathed, while he drank, while he blinked. The rhythm was wrong. Sometimes it hummed with his pulse. Sometimes it hummed against it. Always there. Always counting.
When night fell, the gate changed again.
The first runner who saw it threw up behind the wall and refused to look twice. By the time the Marshal dragged Teren to the courtyard, the lanterns caught it clear.
Below SECOND DEBT DUE, beneath BELONG OR BURN, a fresh line gleamed wet.
FOURTH DEBT DUE.
The letters were straight, steady. Not a rush of hands. Not graffiti. Something deliberate.
A guard stood pale beside the gate. "It wasn't there when I lit the lantern," she whispered. "I swear it. No one came close."
On the ground beneath the paint sat another cloth bundle. Smaller. Neater.
The Marshal crouched, unwrapped it. Inside lay a strip of gray iron—not forged, not broken, but grown. It curved just slightly, as if it were meant to fit another piece.
The torc pulsed hard enough to choke him. His vision blurred. He heard the word pressed inside his teeth.
Enter.
Not tonight. Not ever.
He pulled in breath until it hurt. Four in. Four out. Rain. Rope. Apples. The hum stayed.
Serin stepped close enough for his shadow to touch Teren's. "Fourth," he murmured. "Sooner or later, even you will say yes."
The Marshal wrapped the iron in cloth, eyes grim. "Not while I'm alive."
She looked at the wall again, where the paint still gleamed.
FOURTH DEBT DUE.
Archivist's Note, filed in haste:
The Crown grows itself. Each refusal builds the Vessel. Shape denied is shape accepted. Fourth debt is always the breaking point. Few make it past.