The blood came up black this time.
Kael spat into the gutter and wiped his mouth with a cloth already stained dark from previous nights. The metallic taste lingered on his tongue, bitter and wrong. Around him, the evening market of Greyhollow bustled with life. Merchants shouted prices for winter apples and salted fish. Children weaved through the crowds, laughing and chasing each other between stalls. Lovers walked hand in hand under the warm glow of oil lanterns that swung gently in the breeze.
None of them looked at him.
People never looked at Debt Keepers for long. Something about them made ordinary folks uneasy. Maybe it was the pallor of their skin, drained of color like wax left too long in the sun. Maybe it was the way they moved, as though carrying invisible weight that pressed down on their shoulders with every step. Or maybe it was simply fear. The fear that if they looked too closely, they would see their own debts reflected back in those haunted eyes.
Kael did not care. He preferred being ignored.
He tucked the stained cloth into his coat pocket and continued through the crowd, each step deliberate and measured. His body ached in seventeen different places, each one corresponding to a debt he currently held. The merchant's luck curse sat in his left shoulder like a cold stone. The widow's grief spell pressed against his ribs, making every breath feel heavy. The soldier's pain transfer throbbed in his right knee, a constant reminder of the arrow wound he had never actually received.
Small debts. Manageable debts.
He had held worse.
The market square opened up before him, wider now as the crowds thinned near the fountain at its center. Water burbled peacefully from the mouth of a stone dragon, its scales worn smooth by decades of weather and touch. Kael paused there, leaning against the fountain's edge. He needed to rest. Just for a moment. Just long enough for the tremor in his hands to stop.
He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the dark veins that traced up from his wrists like twisted roots. They had not been there a year ago. Now they covered both forearms, spreading higher with each new debt he accepted. His mother's arms had looked like this near the end. Black veins climbing toward her heart like vines choking a tree.
"Debt Keeper."
The voice came from his left. Quiet. Desperate.
Kael closed his eyes briefly before turning.
A woman stood a few paces away, her fine dress dusty from travel. Her hands clutched a velvet coin purse so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. She had the look of someone who had not slept in days. Maybe weeks.
"Please," she said, stepping closer. Her voice cracked on the word. "I need your help."
Kael straightened slowly, ignoring the protest from his knee. "I am not taking new contracts right now."
"They told me you were the best." She took another step forward, eyes pleading. "They said you have held debts for months without breaking. That you are still standing when others have fallen."
That reputation was going to kill him someday.
"Who told you that?" Kael asked.
"The healers at the temple. My son, " Her voice broke. She swallowed hard and tried again. "My son is dying. The healers say they can save him, but the spell requires a life debt. I cannot, l will not,"
"No." Kael's voice came out flat and cold. He knew where this was going.
"Please, I can pay, "
"I do not take life debts." He turned away from her, jaw tight. "Find someone else."
"There is no one else!" Her shout drew attention from nearby merchants. She lowered her voice quickly, stepping around to block his path. "Every other Keeper in the city has refused. They say the debt is too heavy. They say it will kill whoever holds it within days."
Kael met her eyes. "Then why would I take it?"
"Because, " Tears spilled down her cheeks now. "Because you are the only one left. Because my son is seven years old and he has done nothing to deserve this. Because I am begging you."
Damn it.
Kael looked away from her, over at the fountain where water continued its peaceful flow. He thought of Lira, his sister, lying in their small room above Jarek's tavern. Thought of how small she had looked this morning, how pale. Thought of the empty medicine bottles on the table and the coins he did not have to refill them.
He thought of his mother, at the end, when the debts had finally crushed her from the inside out.
"How old did you say he was?" Kael asked quietly.
"Seven." The word came out as barely more than a whisper.
Kael was quiet for a long moment. Then he sighed, the sound carrying the weight of a decision he already regretted.
"Triple my usual rate," he said without looking at her. "And I hold the debt for two weeks maximum. After that, it transfers back to you or you find another Keeper. Those are my terms. Non-negotiable."
"Yes." She nodded frantically, already reaching into her purse. "Yes, anything. Thank you. Thank you."
"Do not thank me yet."
The transaction was quick and clinical. They walked three streets over to the Temple of Mercy, where white-robed healers moved between beds of the sick and dying. The smell of incense and herbs filled the air, failing to mask the underlying scent of illness.
The boy lay on a cot near the back, his breathing shallow and labored. His skin had taken on a grayish tint. His mother knelt beside him, smoothing hair back from his forehead with shaking hands.
The healer was an older woman with steady hands and kind eyes. She explained the procedure while preparing her materials. The healing spell would pull the boy back from death's edge, but the debt was severe. Someone would have to hold the life energy borrowed from the future. Someone would have to carry the weight of postponed death.
"Are you certain?" the healer asked Kael, studying him with professional concern. "You look unwell already."
"I am always unwell," Kael replied. "Begin the spell."
The healer nodded and placed her hands on the boy's chest. Light bloomed beneath her palms, warm and golden. The boy's breathing steadied. Color returned to his cheeks. His mother sobbed with relief.
And then the debt hit Kael like a fist to the chest.
His vision blurred instantly. The temple spun around him. His knees buckled and he caught himself against the wall, gasping. Cold spread through his body from the center of his chest outward, as though ice water had been poured directly into his veins. The eighteenth debt settled into place, wrapping around his heart like iron chains.
This one was heavy. Heavier than he had expected.
He could feel it pulling at him, dragging him down toward something dark and cold. Death, postponed but not defeated. Death, patient and inevitable, now residing inside him alongside seventeen other borrowed consequences.
"Debt Keeper?" The healer's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Can you stand?"
Kael forced himself upright through sheer stubbornness. His hands shook violently now. The dark veins on his arms pulsed visibly beneath his skin.
"I am fine," he lied.
The mother was crying over her son, who was already sitting up, confused but alive. She looked at Kael with gratitude that made him feel sick.
"Two weeks," Kael reminded her hoarsely. "Then you find another arrangement."
He stumbled out of the temple before she could respond.
The walk back to Jarek's tavern took twice as long as it should have. Kael had to stop three times to lean against walls and wait for the dizziness to pass. By the time he reached the narrow door beside the tavern's main entrance, his vision had darkened at the edges and his breath came in short, painful gasps.
He climbed the stairs one at a time, gripping the railing hard enough to leave marks in the old wood.
Their room was small. One larger bed where Lira slept, one thin mattress on the floor where Kael collapsed at night when exhaustion finally dragged him under. A single window overlooked the market square. A small table held their few possessions, Lira's collection of books, borrowed from the temple library, and the empty medicine bottles.
Lira was awake, propped up against pillows, reading by candlelight. She looked up when Kael entered and her smile faded immediately.
"Bad one?" she asked.
"Just tired." Kael lowered himself carefully onto the edge of her bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than you look." Lira set her book aside and studied him with concern far too old for her fourteen years. "You took another debt."
It was not a question.
"I take debts every day," Kael said. "That is what Debt Keepers do."
"This one is different. I can see it in your eyes." She reached out and took his hand, tracing the dark veins with gentle fingers. "They are spreading faster now."
"Lira, "
"You are dying, Kael." Her voice was steady but her hand trembled. "I know you think I do not notice, but I do. Every day you come back a little more broken than before."
Kael had no answer for that. She was right. They both knew it.
"Your medicine, " he started.
"I can manage without it for a few more days," Lira interrupted. "You need to stop taking new contracts. At least until you can discharge some of the debts you already hold."
"The medicine costs, "
"I know what it costs!" Her sudden sharpness surprised them both. She took a breath and spoke more quietly. "I know, Kael. But what good is the medicine if you are dead? What happens to me then?"
Kael squeezed her hand gently. "I am not going to die."
"Mother said the same thing."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with memory and grief.
Before Kael could respond, a sound cut through the evening air. A deep, resonating boom that shook the window in its frame. Then another. And another.
Kael stood quickly, ignoring the protest from his body, and moved to the window.
The sky to the north glowed orange and red. Not sunset. Fire.
"What is that?" Lira asked, fear creeping into her voice.
More booms echoed across the distance, followed by screams rising from the streets below. People were pouring out of buildings, pointing north, shouting warnings and questions.
Kael's blood ran cold as understanding crashed over him.
The war had reached Greyhollow.
He turned from the window just as Jarek burst through the door without knocking. The older man's face was grim, his usual humor completely absent.
"The army is three miles out," Jarek said without preamble. "Vorrath's forces. They will be here within the hour. The town guard is calling for evacuation."
"Which direction?" Kael asked.
"South. Toward Calys territory." Jarek's eyes flicked to Lira, then back to Kael. "You need to leave now. Take your sister and run."
"She cannot travel far," Kael said quietly. "Not on foot."
"Then you find a cart. You steal a horse. You do whatever it takes." Jarek gripped Kael's shoulder hard. "This is not a raiding party. This is a full military assault. If they breach the walls, everyone inside becomes collateral."
Another explosion, closer this time. The building shook. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.
Lira clutched her blanket, eyes wide. "Kael?"
"Pack what you can carry," Kael told her, forcing calm into his voice. "We are leaving."
Jarek helped Lira while Kael gathered their few valuables and the remainder of their coins. His mind raced through options, trying to formulate a plan through the fog of pain and exhaustion that clouded his thoughts.
They were making their way down the stairs when the screaming started.
Not the distant screams of panic from the approaching army. These were close. Right outside the tavern.
Kael pushed open the door and froze.
The market square was chaos. People ran in every direction, trampling abandoned goods and overturning carts in their panic. But it was not the army causing the panic.
In the center of the square, near the fountain, a man collapsed to his knees.
Kael recognized him immediately. Theron Vask. A Debt Keeper who worked for Vorrath's military. They had met twice before, brief encounters where Theron had tried to convince Kael to take war contracts.
Theron looked like a corpse. His skin had turned gray. Black veins covered every visible inch of his body, pulsing with sickly light. Blood poured from his nose, his ears, his eyes. He was dying. No, he was already dead. His body just had not realized it yet.
"Stay back!" someone shouted. "Stay away from him!"
People gave Theron a wide berth, forming a circle of fear around him. They knew what was coming. Everyone knew what happened when a Debt Keeper died holding too many debts.
Kael felt the pull immediately. Every debt he carried recognized the massive concentration of magical consequence that Theron held. It was like standing near a bonfire and feeling the heat on your skin. Except this fire was made of borrowed death and postponed agony.
"Kael, no." Jarek's hand closed on his arm. "Whatever you are thinking, no."
But Kael was already moving forward.
Theron's eyes found him through the crowd. Recognition flickered there, along with something else. Relief? Desperation?
"Please," Theron rasped. Blood bubbled at his lips. "I cannot, the debts, too many, "
Kael understood immediately. Theron was trying to hold the debts until he died naturally, preventing the catastrophic release that would destroy everything within a hundred yards. But he was losing control. The debts were fighting him, demanding payment, demanding release.
When Theron died, and it would be soon, seconds maybe, all those debts would explode outward like a magical bomb. Everyone in the square would die. Lira would die.
Unless someone took them first.
"How many?" Kael asked, kneeling beside Theron.
"Two hundred and thirty-seven." Theron's laugh was wet and broken. "War debts. City-burner spells. Life drains. Mass killings." He grabbed Kael's coat with desperate strength. "Take them. Please. I cannot die here. Not with all these people."
"Those debts will kill me instantly," Kael said.
"Yes." Theron's grip tightened. "But you might last long enough to get away from the crowd. Long enough to save them."
Kael looked back at Lira, standing in the tavern doorway with Jarek. She was so small. So fragile. The war was coming, and the debts were about to detonate, and there was no time to run far enough.
"Kael, you cannot do this," Jarek shouted. "You are already holding too much. This will break you."
Kael knew he was right. Two hundred and thirty-seven war debts on top of his existing eighteen. It was suicide. He would last minutes at best. Maybe only seconds.
But Lira would live.
"I am sorry," Kael told Theron quietly.
He placed both hands on the dying man's chest and pulled.
The debts came all at once, a flood of dark magic and borrowed consequences crashing into him like an avalanche. Kael's scream tore from his throat without his permission. His body convulsed. Every nerve ending caught fire. His vision went white, then black, then filled with images that were not his own.
Soldiers burning alive.
Children crushed beneath falling stone.
Mothers drowning in blood.
Cities reduced to ash.
All of it, every death, every horror, every cost of the war that Theron had been holding back, it all slammed into Kael at once.
He felt his heart stop.
Then, impossibly, it started again.
Theron collapsed, finally allowed to die in peace. His body dissolved into ash almost immediately, the magical corruption consuming him completely.
Kael remained kneeling, hands pressed against the ground, every muscle locked rigid. The debts settled inside him like molten iron, burning through his veins, his bones, his soul. Black veins spread up his neck, across his jaw, reaching toward his face like grasping fingers.
"Kael!" Lira's voice, distant and terrified.
He tried to stand but his legs would not support him. The weight was too much. Far too much. How had Theron held this for even a day?
Strong hands grabbed him under the arms. Jarek, pulling him upright.
"We need to move," Jarek said urgently. "Now. Before the army arrives."
But Kael barely heard him. His attention was fixed on something else. Something worse.
The debts inside him were not just heavy. They were active. Aware. Hungry.
And they were trying to escape.
He could feel them pushing against the barriers of his will, demanding release, demanding payment. If he lost control, if he died, they would explode with enough force to level half the town.
"How long?" Kael forced the words out through clenched teeth.
"How long for what?" Jarek asked.
"How long, " Kael gasped as another wave of agony rolled through him. "until the army arrives?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe less."
Not enough time to evacuate. Not enough time to get Lira to safety.
Another explosion, much closer now. The sky to the north was completely engulfed in flames. Smoke rolled over the town walls like a living thing.
And through the smoke, Kael saw them.
Soldiers. Hundreds of them, pouring through breaches in the northern wall. Vorrath's army, here to claim Greyhollow as another casualty in their endless war.
At the front of the column rode a man in black armor, his face hidden behind a helm decorated with silver ravens. Captain Vern Aldris. Kael recognized him from wanted posters. The Butcher of Calmire. The man who had burned three cities and laughed while he did it.
The man who had employed Theron.
Their eyes met across the chaos of the square.
Aldris smiled.
Then he raised his hand, and a dozen mages stepped forward, their hands already glowing with prepared spells.
Kael felt the debts inside him surge in response, recognizing the signature of magic that had created them. They wanted to return to their source. They wanted revenge.
"Run," Kael told Jarek. "Take Lira and run south. Do not stop. Do not look back."
"Kael, "
"NOW!"
Jarek hesitated one heartbeat longer, then grabbed Lira and ran.
Kael stood alone in the market square as the mages unleashed their attack. Fire and lightning and force rolled toward him in a wave of destruction.
And the two hundred and thirty-seven war debts inside him finally broke free.
The explosion tore through Greyhollow like the fist of an angry god.
When the light faded and the dust settled, Kael remained standing at the center of a crater where the market square had been.
Alive.
Impossibly, inexplicably alive.
And glowing with black fire that should not exist.