“You could have left some alive!”
It was Kerrik's week with her territory, and Kerrik used it the way he used most things, with loud enthusiasm and no apology. He was on his third body by the time she had the table set up, humming something tuneless, axe across his back, hands moving quickly, looking gleeful.
He was the first at the table.
Mia knew his storage space was large enough that he didn’t need to empty it more than once on a battlefield like this.
"You’re shaping up to be a real scavenger now," he said.
"I’d have preferred to still be a fake," she said, and began recording, tapping the ledger to each item he took out.
He watched her hands. He was always watching her hands. She'd noticed it weeks ago, the way he tracked her movements. From the complaints of him and the rest, they’d had issues with nimble scribes, pocketing an item or two.
"Three," Kerrik said.
She recording. "Three what?"
"You killed three people." He leaned against the table edge. "I counted. I also counted how many you walked past." He picked up a tooth from the pile she hadn't catalogued yet, examined it, set it back down. "That was dangerous, especially without Dan by your side, especially when you were going to clean up with poison after."
She tapped the ledger on the tooth.
"So why three?"
She finished the entry and moved to the next item. "Why do you want to know, and what are you willing to pay for it?"
"Because I heard some interesting things last night and the night before." He said it pleasantly, his voice almost sing-song. "Specifically, the part where Mox's woman came back from the First Division tent and told another woman that Division Commander Attika had asked for a report on the new scribe with the Sacrifice Ledger." He paused. "Funny thing to ask about."
Cracked pauldron: condition, estimated value, maker.
After the first day, she rarely read the reports on items collected.
Kerrik pushed a twig towards her, it was Imbuded with a value of 50 pts.
The number felt mocking.
There was no way he could know, but it sat there between them.
Not a lot.
"Three lives," she said. "One to get my taste back. One to finish paying the debt. The last one to see if I could pay more each month." She looked up at him. "That's what you saw."
She didn’t know if the deception spell or her suppressed feelings caused the tremor running through her body.
Kerrik's beard braids shifted as he smiled. "Ah, so that’s why you stopped at three?"
"That’s why I stopped."
He laughed, a loud, full sound that shook his shoulders. "Interesting." He pushed off the table. “And what does your ledger do?”
Mia raised an eyebrow, putting the twig in her bag and leaving the space on the table empty.
"I'll think about that."
"Take your time," she said. "The rate goes up the longer you wait."
He was still laughing when he went back to the field.
Mia waited until Kerrik was out of earshot.
She turned to Dan, who stepped closer, a scroll appearing in his hand. As he ripped it, a shimmering dome appeared. It flickered for a second before disappearing.
“I’m not sure how to feel about you.” Mia knew the feeling as it crawled over her skin. She bought a 5 pts confirmation spell scroll.
Spell Type: Secrecy Field
Function: A localized area where sight and sound cannot leave. Occupants inside the field cannot repeat conversations that happen inside.
Duration: 30 minutes.
“A good stance to have.” Dan moved to his usual position to her left.
She checked Mox’s ledger, drawing in a sharp breath at what she saw.
Name: Ben
True Name: Ben
Age: 16
Race: Human
Debt Status: Active
Affiliation: Second Division
Occupation: Scribe
Points: 820
Core Attributes:
Strength: 6
Agility: 8
Endurance: 5
Intelligence: 13
Perception: 14
Charisma: 8
Ledger Type: Life Ledger
Ledger Grage: Mythical
Repayment Amount: 250 pts per month
Repayment Cap: N/A
Class: Mage
Primary Aptitude: Mage
Secondary Aptitude: Potioneer
Combat Proficiency: Minimal
Mental Resistance: Moderate
Skills: Literacy (intermediate). Arithmetic (intermediate). Household management (advanced). Hairdressing (advanced). Map reading (basic). Dress making (advanced).
Her hand flew off her page.
She cursed and moved to return her hand to the page before stopping.
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It was more than she’d ever seen about herself before, but less than what she’d seen about Nessa.
She bought Detailed Dossier for 5pts.
Spell Type: Detailed Dossier
Function: a comprehensive, structured collection of documents, data, and reports focused on a single subject, person, or project. This includes, but is not limited to, technical, legal, and background information, with statistics, images, and evidence.
Duration: Permanent. Single use.
Instructions: While wearing gloves, hold the subject for five seconds.
Mia held it in her hands, counting out loud.
She unraveled the scroll and read her information.
The same information, presented in a familiar way: name, age, race, affiliation, occupation. Everything about her. Her past. Her mother. Her father. Impossibly small paintings of her, her house, her uncle.
She ran her finger over it, wondering why she couldn’t feel the texture of the paint.
What sort of world did the Overseers live in?
How was Cinderwild different from the duchy if they had access to ledgers?
Those were questions that seemed so far removed from her, but they crept closer.
She read it twice.
Her ledger’s capabilities were written in plain words.
Then she thought about Attika's questions and her lies.
Sacrifice Ledger, the report being filed, and the interest from the First Division. She thought about what Senric had told her:
It's advised that you don't share what type of ledger you have and the benefits it provides. Not unless you can protect yourself.
She couldn't protect herself. Not yet. Not from the First Division.
But she could control what the ledger showed.
Mia looked at Dan.
Mox was a planner; he saw through her, and he was protecting her.
She pressed her hand back to the page of her borrowed ledger.
Race: Human
Debt Status: Active
Affiliation: Second Division
Occupation: Scribe
Points: 820
Core Attributes:
Strength: 5
Agility: 6
Endurance: 5
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
Charisma: 6
Ledger Type: Sacrifice Ledger
Ledger Grade: Common
Repayment Amount: Five lives per month.
Repayment Cap: 30 lives per month
Class: Mage
Primary Aptitude: Mage
Secondary Aptitude: Potioneer
Combat Proficiency: Minimal
Mental Resistance: Moderate
There it was. The lie she needed to tell was written out for her.
It was also a test.
No, a confirmation.
Mox could lie about her information, but he wasn’t the only one with an Information Ledger. She had no doubt Attika and others would verify his information for themselves.
Mox was confirming her access to an item that could change her information.
She looked at the entry.
Only Intelligence and perception above average. Unremarkable. The kind of capacity that explained access to a common ledger.
Mia made her final purchase and went about changing the information.
The ledger type. She changed it to Sacrifice Ledger. The lie that was already in circulation.
The debt. Five lives, monthly. What she'd told Attika.
She reviewed the skills and changed her literacy to advanced proficiency. It was a small vanity, and adding it might have created a gap that someone meticulous might notice, but she couldn't stomach the idea of letting Mox make all the decisions for her.
She closed the borrowed ledger and opened her own.
POINTS AVAILABLE: 915
She hadn’t checked how many people died when she poisoned Nessa’s territory.
Her small shopping list had taken 135 pts.
She stared.
It was easy to spend.
The cost disappeared when only the ledger was open in front of her and a growing list of things she needed in her mind.
Advanced Literacy.
What word came after you finished counting all the thousands?
It was a simple question, one Dan could answer.
Maybe even Nessa could answer.
Or she could purchase Advanced Literacy for 55 pts.
The points dropped from 915 to 860.
Spell Type: Advanced Literacy
Creation: Book
Function: creates a comprehensive guide to skills and competencies that enable communication, spoken and written, in increasingly diverse ways, including morphological analysis and multi-disciplinary academic language.
Duration: Permanent.
Instructions: While wearing gloves, write the name of the language, at least seventy percent of the alphabet of the desired language, and five grammatically correct phrases.
Mia followed the instructions and then watched as the pages of the book filled out.
Next, she used a transfer information spell.
She felt the spell settle.
Like something being tucked away.
Like a door opening.
Million.
The word she didn’t know was million.
Mia’s debt was five million points.
She sat with the remaining points and thought about what else she needed, and found herself thinking instead about what she'd just done.
Points spent on vanity.
There was no doubt the information was useful, but it wasn’t a necessary purchase.
She was going to spend.
She was going to spend every point she generated because that was the point. Because the ledger was a system, she was a cog, and the mechanism was supposed to run.
It wasn’t even a justification.
Taking the life was hard, but spending the point amounted to less than nothing.
The queasiness arrived on schedule. She recognized it. It wasn’t the immediate physical response like after York.
A quieting, a lessening as it became the norm.
There was a pop, and the space disappeared.
She put away everything but Mox’s ledger.
Molly approached.
She emptied the contents of her bag, took out a chair, and sat across the table while Mia worked through it.
"You’ve gotten answers," Molly said.
"Some."
Molly watched her hands the way Kerrik did, only with more patience and less suspicion. "You look different today than you did last time."
"I slept badly."
"Mm. That happens." Molly took out her ledger and turned it over in her hands. "You know what I noticed when I started using mine regularly?" She didn't specify what mine was. She didn't need to. "The math started to feel normal before the rest of it did. You'd do the calculation in seconds. How many, when, which ones, and the number would just sit there like any other number. Lik,e how much salt for a pot of broth?" She smoothed her hand over the cover. "Then one day you catch yourself planning next month while you're still in the middle of this month, and you think: Ah. There it is."
Mia finished the entry. Moved to the next item.
"Is that a warning?" she asked. Mia wanted it to be; she wanted someone to tell her to focus on her debt and not use the ledger unless she had to.
"No," Molly said. "I don't think it'd make any difference if it were. People die. Ledgers are useful. The sun rises in the east. Facts of life." She stood and picked up her bag. "Your girl did well today."
Mia looked up.
"The small one. She took everything and didn't ask for help." Molly slung the bag over her shoulder. "Whatever you did, she's going to be fine."
She walked back to the field, and Mia watched her go, and thought about the points left in the ledger, and thought about having Nessa spread the story of the Sacrifice Ledger to the people who knew her as Ben, and thought about whether she needed to ask or whether Nessa would understand without being asked.
Nessa would understand.
Nessa always understood. That was the thing about Nessa that was the most useful and the most unbearable at the same time.
She decided she'd ask anyway. It was better to ask.
A shadow fell across the table.
Not Kerrik's shadow, not Molly's, not the familiar shape of Dan. She looked up.
It was a new face. Young, blank-faced, with a familiar crest on his chest and the bearing of someone who thought his job was important.
"Scribe Ben," he said. "Division Commander Attika requests your attendance."
Mia looked at the table. Most of the Ravagers hadn’t turned over their loot. She looked at Dan, who stepped forward, positioning himself slightly between her and the man.
She looked back at the runner.
"Of course," she said. “But, you’ll have to wait.” Mia made this choice last time. She was affiliated with the Second Division and had to prioritize it. “The time is almost up, and all the scavenger will be handing in their loot; you’ll have to wait until that is finished.”
“You’re making the commander wait?” The man’s voice was high, the blank look slipping off his face.
“Did you get an order from the Second Division on how the recording of loot would take place once I left my post?” Mia raised an eyebrow. “No. Then, without orders from my own command, I can’t abandon my post. This won’t take long.”
Her heart was racing, but her face was pulled into a calm mask by a spell that felt far too cheap for all that it did.
