All Chapters of The Skyveil Ledger: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Frostmoor was bitterly cold, rich in soldiers and horses, and desperately short of both grain and medicine.Under the identity of a mute Hawkridge servant presented to the Frostmoor king, I was thrown into Ronan Blackwood's war tent.Ronan had only recently crushed an internal rebellion. Blood seemed to follow him everywhere, and even his smile felt like a knife against the throat.The system gave me a simple assignment."Acquire Frostmoor's military-supply ledgers and open a grain-for-horses trade route with Hawkridge."I immediately identified the important part."And how am I supposed to acquire them?"The system answered with four words."Use your own judgment."Using my own judgment resulted in six months of pretending I could not speak.When Ronan met with his commanders, I knelt nearby tending the brazier.When Ronan inspected troops, I stood in the snow holding a lantern.His officers mocked me as useless tribute from Hawkridge, so I lowered my head and memorized ev

The Skyveil burned through the entire night.So did the rest of the world.Courier dispatches from Frostmoor, Willowspire, and Rivermark reached Hawkridge almost at the same time.Ronan's letter was the shortest, only three words."Hand Mara over."Sebastian's letter was the thickest, thirty-seven pages in all.The first page discussed old affection.The second discussed heartbreak.The third began calculating interest.By the final page, Treasury Minister Desmond Ashby glanced at the total and fainted on the spot.Adrian did not bother writing a letter.He simply brought Willowspire cavalry to Hawkridge's border.The sky was overcast that day, and Hawkridge citizens packed the city walls.Everyone looked upward.The Skyveil was still broadcasting my "criminal record."Some called me a swindler.Others said I had humiliated Hawkridge before the entire world.Then one voice rose through the insults."But without the princess, wouldn't we all have died in the famine two

Pip was the system's embodied sub-process.She looked like a six-year-old girl with a round face, enormous eyes, and a string of blue code always floating above her head.When she first appeared, I assumed she had been sent to monitor me.She had.While I pretended to be mute in Frostmoor, she recited suggested dialogue in my head every day.While I stole ledgers in Rivermark, she screamed warning alerts constantly.While I staged my death in Willowspire, she cried so hard her data stream scattered while still reminding me what to do."Host, three more tears will improve realism by three points."Back then she annoyed me, annoyed me enough that I wanted to reformat her.But later, when an epidemic struck Hawkridge, she spent the entire night modeling medicine combinations for me.When Frostmoor's roads vanished under blizzards, she calculated until she crashed and found the only canyon route a supply wagon could still cross.When Rivermark grain and money entered Hawkridge,

Not physically sick.My mind was simply too quiet.From the first day I entered the novel, Pip had never stopped talking in my ear.Missions, numbers, risks—always something.I used to find her annoying.But after she truly vanished, I finally understood that in all those three years, every time I walked into danger alone, I'd never actually been alone.On the third night, I woke violently from a dream.Elias sat beside the bed with a rolled ledger in his hand.My throat was painfully hoarse."Where is Pip?"He was silent for a moment."The Skyveil remains."The Trade Board remains too."There's just no system voice anymore."I stared at the bed canopy and tears suddenly ran from my eyes.Elias reached out and wiped them away.His touch was careful, as if I might break."Mara, you've already done more than enough."I shook my head."Not enough."Pip hadn't taken that bolt of lightning so I could lie in bed crying.She had left the Skyveil behind.She had left the