THE CURRENCY OF SOULS

Elara Vance

The command tent felt smaller now, suffocating under the weight of the iron-bound book. Outside, the Northern wind howled, but inside, the air was unnervingly still. Kaelen picked up one of the black coins I had spilled.

It didn't clink against his gauntlet. It made a soft, fleshy thud, as if it were made of frozen blood rather than metal.

"This isn't King’s gold," Kaelen said, his voice tight. He turned the coin over. The weeping eye on the back seemed to blink in the flickering candlelight. "I’ve seen these in the old archives of the North. They call them Obols of the Unspoken. They aren't used to buy bread or steel. They are used to buy time."

"Philip said my father was buying your blood," I whispered, the iron book shaking in my hands. "Kaelen, if the Vances have been harvesting Thorne blood for generations, that’s why the curse is so unstable. You aren't just 'cursed' by nature, you’re being bled."

“Ting.”

The Archivist didn't speak. He simply pointed toward the unconscious Philip.

“Task Sixteen: A drop of truth for a gallon of lies. Press a Black Obol against Philip’s forehead. The coin will drink his memory of the transaction. You must see the face of the man who delivered the Sun-Fire to the Vance estate.”

I reached out and took a coin from Kaelen’s hand. It felt unnaturally heavy, pulsing with a low, cold heat.

"What are you doing?" Kaelen asked, watching me with a mix of fascination and dread.

"I need to know who he’s working with," I said. I knelt beside Philip and pressed the weeping eye of the coin against his skin.

The effect was instantaneous. The black coin turned a violent, bruised purple. A projection of smoke rose from the metal, swirling into a misty image in the center of the tent.

I saw the Vance estate, but it was shrouded in a fog I didn't recognize. My father, Lord Vance, was standing in his study. He looked older, his face etched with a desperate greed. Across from him stood a man in a hooded red robe, the livery of the High Priests of the Capital.

"The Duke’s blood is becoming thin," my father’s voice echoed from the smoke. "The shadow is waking up. If we don't get the next shipment of Sun-Fire to stabilize the extraction, the Archivist will reclaim the debt early."

The hooded man handed my father a crate. "The King knows nothing. But remember, Vance: the girl is the key. When she dies, the cycle resets. Do not let her marry the Duke."

The vision shattered as the coin crumbled into fine, grey ash in my hand.

I looked up at Kaelen. He was deathly pale.

"They were planning my death before I even met Caspian," I realized, the horror of it washing over me. "My marriage to Caspian wasn't just a political match. It was a sacrificial altar. I was supposed to die so the 'cycle' could continue. My father didn't just fail to protect me, he was the one who sharpened the knife."

Kaelen’s shadow erupted, filling the tent with a suffocating darkness. His eyes were no longer blue; they were pits of starlight and void.

"They used you," Kaelen rasped, his voice vibrating with a power that threatened to tear the tent apart. "They used your life to keep my blood-line in a cage. And they used my blood to keep your father rich."

He reached down, pulling me up into a crushing embrace. "No more, Elara. We aren't going to the Vance estate to talk. We’re going there to burn it down."

"Wait," I said, pulling back just enough to look at the iron book. "If they need me to die for the cycle to reset... then as long as I am alive and by your side, the Archivist is losing control. That’s why the tasks are getting harder. He’s trying to kill me before I can break his bank."

I looked at the list of names again. At the very bottom, beneath Lyra’s name, was a new one, written in fresh, wet ink.

The Child of Thorne.

My breath hitched. I wasn't pregnant, not yet, but the book was already pricing the soul of a child that didn't even exist.

"Kaelen," I whispered, showing him the name. "They aren't just hunting us. They’re hunting our future."

Kaelen’s grip tightened. "Then we give them a future they never expected. One where the Archivist is the one who pays the debt."