The heart bundle still lay on the Crown Office steps. Red thread cut so deep into the flesh it looked branded.
SIXTH DUE — MEMORY.
The words on the gate burned like scars.
Crowds whispered louder than bells. Everyone in the square asked the same thing: whose memory?
Teren kept his hood low. The iron torc hugged his throat, cold and steady. The First Fragment had fused into it the night before, and the collar hadn't shut up since. Every step, every breath carried the same whisper in his bones.
Remember. Forget. Remember. Forget.
The Marshal pushed through the crush, steel-gray hair bristling. "Inside," she snapped. "Not here."
Stones rattled on the gate as they slipped through. Someone screamed his name like a curse. Someone else sobbed as if they'd lost a child and weren't sure which child it was.
The First Taste
The Quiet Room still held faint red streaks where his blood had soaked the grooves. Archivists circled like crows, quills scratching fast. A blackwood box sat open on the table; the mirror fogged on its own.
Words carved through the mist:
FRAGMENT CLAIMED. MEMORY BENDS.
The torc pulsed against Teren's scar—cold pressing deep, like a thumb on a bruise. He touched the iron ridges with two fingers. They felt higher today, jagged like half-grown teeth.
Images slammed into his head—too sharp, too close. His father's voice at the door: Up, boy—except his father had died when Teren was five. A girl's laugh in a wheat field—except he'd never met her. His own hands dripping with blood—except the blood wasn't his and the room wasn't real.
He staggered.
Neris caught his arm, braid over one shoulder, pale green eyes steady. "What do you see?"
"Not mine," he rasped. "Memories that aren't mine."
Brann stepped close, solid as stone. "Then shove them out."
"It's not that simple." The images overlapped, stacking until he wasn't sure whether last year's vowfire had burned him or he'd only dreamed the scar.
The Marshal's voice cut sharp. "Don't argue with it. Anchor. Now."
Teren dragged air in. Four counts in, four out. The torc pressed back, angry at the rhythm. He forced the words through clenched teeth anyway. "Rain on tin. Rope through a pulley. Apples in summer."
The false pictures dulled, like cloth pulled over a mirror. The hum didn't stop.
The mirror etched again:
THE SIXTH DEMANDS RECOLLECTION. PAID IN TRUTH.
The City Forgets
By midday, the lower wards tilted sideways.
A baker's daughter screamed in the road because the woman holding her hand wasn't her mother—except she was. Two carpenters fought over a beam they both swore they'd cut, until they turned to find a foreman neither remembered. Soldiers swapped orders mid-step and drew steel on each other for disobeying commands that had never been given.
Everywhere, memory thinned like thread stretched too far.
SIXTH DUE appeared in tar on alley walls, in soap on washbasins, even in spilled grain across tavern floors. No one admitted to writing it.
The torc fed. Teren felt it. The hum rose when someone forgot a child's name and fell when a crowd cursed his own. He dozed in a chair and woke with his heart slamming—because for one breath he couldn't remember Neris's face.
She pressed her palm to his arm. "Look at me. Anchor. Stay here."
"Rain," he gasped. "Rope. Apples."
"Again," Brann said firmly.
"Rain. Rope. Apples." His jaw unclenched.
The Street Rescue
At Breedwell Steps, screaming pulled them right. A boy dangled over the rail, held only by his sister's fist. She shouted his name—Dav—but each time she looked at him, her eyes went blank with terror, as if she didn't know him.
The crowd froze, useless.
Brann moved first. "Hold my belt."
Teren wrapped the leather in his hand. "Don't fall."
Brann poured himself through the rail. His arm shot down. The boy reached up, fingers slipping. The sister's grip failed the moment her memory did.
The torc pressed cold against Teren's scar.
Take.
No.
He leaned into the iron, forcing it to hold instead of steal. "Dav," he said quickly. "Your sister's hand is warm. Smells like flour. You've held it a hundred times."
The boy's eyes cleared. He pushed up, Brann caught his wrist, and they both collapsed back over the rail.
The crowd erupted in claps like rain on tin. The sister sobbed into Brann's shoulder. "I couldn't remember him. I couldn't—I—"
"It's the city," Brann said gently. "Not you."
Teren's knees shook. The torc purred like it enjoyed being useful. Neris's look said: don't you dare feed it again.
Serin's Gambit
By dusk, the Crown Office square boiled. Torches, stones, screams. People demanded a crown that wasn't iron on one boy's throat.
Serin Haldrin walked onto the stairs like the city had been saving him.
Golden hair gleamed, uniform spotless, vowflame at his throat blazing like a coin lifted to the sun.
"The Crown doesn't own us," he called. "Not our blood. Not our memories. You don't bow to iron on a stranger's neck. You stand with the light you can see."
The crowd roared.
Serin arced golden light into a dome across the square, warm and steady. Smoke thinned beneath it. People cried with relief. Some dropped their stones. All stared like he had dragged down the sun.
Brann muttered, "He's crowning himself."
"He's making himself believable," Neris said tightly.
The torc pressed cold into Teren's scar.
Forget.
For a sharp second, he believed Serin had pulled him out of the Hall. He spat blood to taste real.
Serin's eyes slid to him. "Hard day, Vessel?" he asked softly.
Teren didn't answer. The iron hummed like a smug cat.
The Vault
The Marshal pulled them underground. "Ledger room. If the city's forgetting, we track what's missing."
The vault stank of glue and dust. Ledgers covered the tables. Torchlight made ink twitch, names shifting a letter and pretending they hadn't.
The mirror fogged in its box:
LEDGERS UNTRUSTED. TRUTH IN THREADS.
The torc squeezed Teren's throat. A map flickered in his mind—lines between names, between faces, between promises once made.
He whispered, "It wants me to pull them."
"Don't," Neris snapped.
The iron whispered back, eager.
Pull. Take. Keep.
Teren planted his palms on the ledger, refusing the pull. "I won't take. I'll mark."
Threads glowed. He pointed, voice steady. "This house lost a son that never existed. This shop forgot it sold nails. This oath is empty."
The Marshal's jaw tightened. "Good. That's enough."
The torc pressed harder, hungry. Teren broke the vision on purpose. The map collapsed. Dust and ink returned.
Neris hissed at the iron, "He doesn't work for you."
The torc hummed low, like it had taken note.
The Debt Paid
The torc clenched without warning in the hall. Teren slammed both hands against the wall, gasping.
Images crashed over him: Neris bleeding, Brann burning, Serin bowing. His mother's laugh erased like chalk.
The torc whispered, sharp and hard.
Give me her face. Give me his name. Give me yourself.
The mirror fogged:
ONE MEMORY CLAIMED. SIX REMAIN.
Neris locked her hand on his shoulder. "You choose. Not it."
Brann clamped his wrist. "Take me if you need weight."
The iron didn't care. It pressed for leverage.
Teren forced anchors through his teeth. "Rain. Rope. Apples."
Red light exploded in his head. A shard of cold brightness lifted from the grooves like broken glass. It sank into the torc.
He gasped—his mother's laugh was gone. Not the words, just the shape. The tilt of her voice.
The Marshal's voice cut quick. "Mark it. Sixth fragment bound."
The mirror etched:
FRAGMENTS GATHER. MEMORY FRAYS.
Neris's voice softened. "It didn't take her. Just a corner. We'll redraw it."
He nodded, but it felt like a lie.
Serin's Show
Night dragged thin. Fear muttered instead of screamed.
Serin stood again on the Office stairs, gold warm around him.
"Go home," he said, voice smooth. "Don't make new promises. Don't ask questions you can't answer. Hold the names you can say."
A woman cried. A man stared at his ring like it might speak.
Serin dimmed the light and looked at Teren. He tilted his chin in a salute that meant I won.
The torc pressed cold. Forget.
Teren turned away.
The Marshal's voice dropped low. "Tomorrow we give them something to hold. Soup lines. Rosters. Order. Feels like truth."
Neris's mouth ghosted a smile. "I can season order."
Teren didn't speak. The iron always listened.
At dawn, the gates carried fresh writing in red ash:
SEVENTH DUE — BOND.
Not hearts. Not hair. Bundles of broken rings, snapped bracelets, torn ribbons.
A guard lifted a ring, meaning well. "Someone left this."
Neris snatched it. "Don't wear it. Don't remember it." She tied it in cloth twice.
The torc pulsed deep.
Tie. Untie. Tighten.
Archivist's Note (later filed):
The Sixth Debt frays memory. The Seventh snaps bonds. A crown built from forgetting rules easiest of all.
Teren set his jaw. "Rain," he whispered. "Rope. Apples."
The anchors held. For now.