The undercity smelled of coal and wet wool, a place where the fog sank and stayed, where the lamps burned low and people moved like shadows that had learned to keep their mouths shut. Aedric followed the map Elandor had refused to draw for him—an alley that narrowed until the walls leaned in like conspirators, a stair that led down into a room where the air tasted of iron and old promises.
He had not slept. He had not eaten. The ruined book lay beneath his coat like a pulse he could not ignore. The market's faces haunted him: Mara's hollow eyes, the fevered child's rasping breath. He had read the line a hundred times and felt it like a bruise: To alter fate, one must surrender what is most cherished.
At the bottom of the stair, a door of blackened wood stood half-open. A single candle burned inside, and the light painted the room in amber and shadow. A woman sat at a low table, her hair braided with silver wire, her fingers stained with ink and something darker. She looked up as he entered, and her eyes were the color of old coins.
"You come for the fragment," she said without surprise. Her voice was dry as parchment. "Most come for power. Few come for price."
"I come to save a child," Aedric said. The words felt small in the room. "Mara's boy. He's dying."
The woman—Mira, the Binder, as the undercity called her—tilted her head. "You read a line and think you understand a Law. You do not. Laws are not recipes. They are bargains. They ask, and they take."
Aedric set the ruined book on the table. The candlelight trembled across the crushed spine. "Tell me what it asks. Tell me what it takes."
Mira's fingers hovered over the pages but did not touch them. "Fragments are hungry. They will eat what you offer and then ask for more. This one—this Law of Blood—demands a cherished thing. Not a coin, not a life. A memory. A truth you hold like a lantern. Give it, and the Law will bend. Refuse, and the fragment will rot in your hands."
Aedric's throat tightened. "A memory?"
"A memory," Mira repeated. "Something you would not trade for gold or for glory. Something that makes you human."
He thought of his mother's laugh—bright and sudden, a sound that had filled their small kitchen and made the damp walls seem less like walls. He thought of the library where he had learned to read, of the smell of ink and the way the pages had felt like doors. He thought of Jorin's grin, of Lyra's steady eyes. He thought of the child in the market and the miners who never returned.
"How much?" he asked.
Mira's mouth was a thin line. "The Law does not bargain. It names. You must name the memory and then let it go. Once given, it will be gone from you as if it had never been. You will remember that you gave something, but not what you gave. That is the cruelty and the mercy."
Aedric's hands curled into fists. "If I give it—if I lose a memory—will the child live?"
Mira's eyes were unreadable. "The fragment will act. It will pull at the thread of fate and stitch a new pattern. But stitches fray. The Law will not promise permanence. It will promise consequence."
He thought of Elandor's warning, of Jorin's betrayal, of Lyra's whisper to run. He thought of the way the city had turned on Mara. He thought of the child's small chest rising and falling like a bell.
"Do it," he said.
Mira nodded and produced a bowl of black water and a length of silver wire. She instructed him to sit and to close his eyes. The room hummed with a sound like distant bells. She asked him to name the memory aloud.
Aedric's voice came out thin. "My mother's laugh."
The words felt like a blade. He had not realized how much the sound lived inside him until he said it and felt the space it occupied go cold. Mira dipped the wire into the black water and traced a sigil on his palm. The metal bit cold into his skin. He felt a tug, like a thread being pulled from the back of his mind.
Images came—his mother's hands kneading dough, the way sunlight had fallen across her hair, the small crooked chair by the window. He tried to hold them, to press them into his mind like pressed flowers, but they slipped. He felt the memory unhook itself and slide away, and with it went a warmth he had not known he needed.
When the ritual ended, he opened his eyes and the room looked the same, but something inside him had been hollowed. He could not summon the sound of her laugh. He could remember that he had loved her, that she had been kind, but the particular bright note that had once been a compass was gone.
Mira watched him with a face that did not soften. "You paid," she said. "The fragment will act within the hour."
He staggered to his feet, the loss like a physical ache. "Did it work?"
Mira's lips twitched. "Go and see."
He ran through the undercity, up the stair, into the fog that clung to Duskveil like a secret. The market was a smear of movement and color. People shouted, vendors argued, a dog barked. He pushed through the crowd until he found Mara, who sat on a crate with her child in her lap, eyes closed, skin flushed.
Aedric knelt. The child's breath was shallow, but steady. Aedric placed his hand on the small chest and felt warmth, then a slow, steady rhythm that was not there before. Mara's eyes opened, wet and incredulous.
"It's… he's breathing," she whispered. "How—?"
Aedric could not explain. He only knew that the child's fever had broken, that the rasping had smoothed into a regular sound. People around them murmured, some crossed themselves, others looked away as if they had seen a miracle and did not want to be implicated.
Mara grabbed Aedric's hands and pressed them to her face. "Bless you," she said. "Bless you."
He let her hold him for a moment, feeling the gratitude like a hot coal. It warmed him, but it did not fill the hollow. He tried to summon his mother's laugh to share the moment, to give it back to the world as proof that he had not become a monster, but the sound would not come. He felt a small panic, a childlike fear that something essential had been taken.
"Are you all right?" Mara asked, concern cutting through her gratitude.
Aedric forced a smile that felt like a mask. "Yes. Go. Tend to him."
She left, clutching her child, and the crowd dispersed like a tide. Aedric stood alone in the square, the ruined book heavy beneath his coat, the absence inside him like a missing tooth.
He had paid the price. The Law had bent. The child lived.
But the cost sat in his chest like a stone.
He walked without direction until he found himself at the bridge where Jorin's family lived. He had not meant to go there, but the city had a way of steering him toward the things that hurt. Across the street, behind a shuttered window, he saw a light and the silhouette of a woman and two small children. Jorin stood in the doorway, his back to the street, his shoulders hunched.
Aedric's feet moved before his mind could catch up. He crossed the street and stopped beneath the window. Jorin looked down and his face went white.
"Aedric," Jorin said. The name was a plea.
"You sold me," Aedric said. The words were not a question.
Jorin's hands trembled. "I had no choice. They said they would take my wife. They said they would—"
"Your family was safe," Aedric said. The sight of them behind the glass was a knife. "You chose them over me."
Jorin's eyes filled. "I chose life. I chose to keep them. I thought— I thought if I gave you up, they would leave us be. I didn't know they would crush the book. I didn't know—"
Aedric felt something inside him shift. The memory he had given did not return; the hole remained. But where the laugh had been, a new thing began to grow: a cold clarity that measured choices and weighed outcomes without mercy.
"You were afraid," Aedric said. "You were afraid and you chose safety."
Jorin's voice broke. "Forgive me."
Aedric looked at the family in the window—Jorin's wife smoothing a child's hair, the other child asleep against her shoulder. He thought of the miners who never returned, of Mara's child who now breathed, of the way the city forced people into impossible choices.
He could have struck Jorin. He could have screamed until the whole street heard. Instead he did something quieter and more terrible: he turned away.
"Go home," he said. "Keep them safe."
Jorin's shoulders sagged as if a weight had been lifted and then replaced with something heavier. "You—"
Aedric walked into the fog. He felt the city press against him, full of bargains and bargains' children. He had saved a life and lost a piece of himself. He had been betrayed and had forgiven in action, not in heart.
As he moved through the alleys, a shadow detached itself from the wall and fell into step beside him. Lyra's shawl was wrapped tight; her breath came in small clouds.
"You did it," she said. There was no accusation in her voice, only a tired relief.
"I did," Aedric said. "The child lives."
Lyra's eyes searched his face. "You look… different."
He touched his palm where the wire had bitten. The skin was faintly raised, a pale line. "I feel different."
She hesitated, then reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were warm and steady. "I lied to you," she said. "I told the Watch where you were. I thought— I thought if I kept you close, I could protect you. I didn't know Jorin would—"
Aedric's jaw tightened. "You told them."
Lyra's eyes filled. "I told them to protect my brother. They threatened him. I had no choice."
He remembered the night Jorin had pushed him, the boot on the book, the crushed spine. He remembered the way Lyra had warned him to run. The city had made them all into small, frightened animals.
"You could have told me," he said.
"I know," she whispered. "I know. I am sorry."
Her apology landed like a stone. He wanted to hurl it back, to demand more, to tear open the reasons and find the truth. Instead he felt the new clarity inside him sharpen.
"You saved a child," he said finally. "You kept your brother safe. You lied."
Lyra's hand tightened on his. "I did what I had to."
Aedric looked at her, at Jorin's family across the street, at the ruined book beneath his coat. The city hummed around them, a living thing that fed on fear and called it order.
"Do you know what you are doing?" Lyra asked, voice small.
He did not answer. He did not know, not fully. He only knew that the world had a ledger now, and that he had made an entry with his own blood and memory. He had paid. He had saved a life. He had lost a laugh.
A whisper brushed the back of his neck, soft as a promise and cold as a blade. You have paid. The Law remembers.
Aedric turned. The alley behind him was empty, but the fog seemed to pulse, as if something beneath the city had taken notice. He felt, for the first time, the weight of consequence settle on his shoulders like a mantle.
He had taken the first deliberate step. He had learned how to bargain with a fragment and had paid its price. He had forgiven a friend with his feet and accepted a betrayal with his silence.
Ahead, the city opened like a wound. Behind him, something watched and waited.
He did not yet know what he would become. But the hollow where a laugh had lived was not empty; it was a place where resolve could grow. He felt it begin to harden, like iron cooling in the dark.
And somewhere, beneath the cobbles and the candlelight, a Law stirred.