Zeraphine (as Dai Rhessa)
It had been a long time since she'd tended a wound.
Not simulated. Not financial. Not metaphorical.
An actual, physical wound.
She worked quickly, hands steady, sealing the edges of Arlyss's side with a thin thread of bio-credit—each stitch a ledger line that drew blood and memory together. Arlyss winced but didn't complain. Her eyes were on Sykaion, who sat across from them both, watching quietly.
"I'm fine," Arlyss muttered, not for the first time.
"You're not," Rhessa replied, voice sharp, "but you'll hold."
The air between the three of them felt electric. Tangled. Charged with a hundred things unsaid.
Finally, Sykaion broke it.
"You moved too fast for a normal merchant."
Rhessa didn't blink. "That was not a normal assassin."
"And you're not a normal appraiser."
"I never said I was."
He stared at her for a moment longer. Then leaned back against the cracked wall of the old market pillar they'd taken shelter behind. Around them, the lights of Veltrin Sprawl shimmered through mist and low-hanging trade banners.
"Then why help me?"
Her voice was quieter now.
"Because I've been watching you," she said. "And I don't know yet if what you're doing is heresy… or hope."
---
Sykaion
He didn't know whether to trust her.
Everything about "Dai Rhessa" pulsed with misdirection—perfect posture, neutral tones, hands that moved like someone who'd once wielded final authority. But her eyes… they weren't hollow.
They were conflicted.
That mattered more than anything.
"I'm building something," he said. "It doesn't have a name yet. But I think it's what comes after trust fails and power forgets what it owes."
She said nothing.
He added, "You can walk away any time. But if you stay, you're buying in."
"Buying what?"
He looked at the skyline.
"Me."
> [Featherlink Echo – New Pulse Detected]
Status: Dai Rhessa = Emotional Tether at 7% Formation
Type: Observer Class – Suppressed Alignment
He ignored it. For now.
---
Red Ledger Syndicate
Elsewhere, deeper than Veltrin's currency vaults and beneath the official trade layer, in a zone of black contract smog and ghosted deeds, sat a bar called Default. The doors had no handles. The seats had no names.
And at the back, in a booth that never moved but always changed location, waited a man known only as Killmark.
He wore no face.
His visage shifted based on the observer's guilt. To the coward, he looked like shame. To the tyrant, justice. To the debtor—he was every sleepless night made flesh.
A figure approached.
Clerk robes. Pale gloves. A glowing slip.
"Target confirmed," the clerk whispered. "Sykaion Kairo. Tier II Debtwalker. Currently influencing low-tier system growth with unlicensed Hope Metrics. Disorder coefficient climbing."
Killmark didn't move.
He didn't need to.
"Terms?"
"50,000 Etherseconds. Three Memory Threads. One name cleared."
A pause.
Then the hunter's voice, low and sharp as a coin slit.
"I don't want the payment."
The clerk frowned. "Then—"
"I want what he's selling."
He stood.
The floor beneath him cracked like a ledger closing on unpaid interest.
---
Zeraphine (Observer Log – Private Memory Capsule)
Sykaion Kairo continues to deviate from established debt arc models.
Emotional contagion effect detected across multiple clients.
Projection value has exceeded safety thresholds.
I am beginning to understand why the System fears him.
He offers debt… with mercy.
Value… with risk.
And people—even I—are starting to wonder what kind of economy might rise from that combination.
---
Sykaion
That night, as he sat beside a sleeping Arlyss in the half-lit shop ruins, Sykaion stared up at the city sky, watching trade lights flicker like stars in a storm.
He didn't know where Rhessa had gone.
He didn't know who else was watching.
But he felt it.
A new weight in the air.
Someone was coming.
Not to invest.
Not to bargain.
But to end him.
To be continued in Chapter 13…