Borrowed Levels

Chapter 22: Silver Threads

By the third round, Ren had begun to see the threads.

He noticed them first on Selka Dray, the Treasurer's champion in the second bracket. She was a slender woman with a pale braid and a long, thin blade that moved like a snake. Ren watched her fight a mercenary from the bleachers, and something nagged at him. Her movements were too fast. Too clean. Nobody trained that hard.

Then the light caught her wrist, and he saw it.

A single silver thread, thinner than hair, ran from her arm up into the air, curving high over the arena toward the north balcony.

He went still.

"What?" said Dara, beside him. She had slipped down to the fighters' rail to share a bowl of noodles. "You look sick."

"Look at Selka's hand. Does she have anything on it?"

Dara squinted. "No."

"Nothing silver?"

"Ren. No."

He breathed out. Of course she couldn't see it. This was the Ledger's gift, or curse. The silver threads were only visible to holders.

On the sand, Selka's blade licked out. Her opponent fell with a clean cut across the thigh. She did not even look at him.

The thread brightened. A tiny pulse traveled along it, from the balcony to the champion.

Someone was feeding her.

"The links," Ren whispered. "It's the links. Ilyra's old ones. Mael never cut them."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning every champion he sends into that ring is running on Ilyra's strength. She's still lending to them. She can't stop. And every win costs her something."

Dara swore under her breath, a long, creative string. "She's in the cellar. She said she was fine."

"She's lying."

They ran back through the crowded concourse. The cellar door at House Merrow was open by the time they arrived, and Pip was already on her knees beside Ilyra, who lay on a cot with her eyes half closed.

She was gray.

Her lips were cracked, and the silver rings on her fingers glowed a faint, sick light. When Ren knelt beside her, her hand twitched toward his.

"I'm fine," she whispered.

"You're not."

"It's just a headache." She smiled faintly. "The Treasurer's champions. They're winning. I can feel them, Ren. Every time they win, it pulls. Like someone is drinking from my arm."

"Can you stop it?"

"I've tried." A tear slid across her temple. "They link to me even when I don't want them to. It isn't a choice. It's a leash."

Ren looked at the Ledger.

[ FORCED LINK DETECTED: 4. ] [ SOURCE: VANCE, ILYRA. ] [ LENDER UNABLE TO REFUSE. ]

He turned the words over in his mind. A forced link. The Ledger had a name for it, which meant the Ledger had a rule for it.

"Ilyra," he said slowly. "When you lent to me in Granna Oss's loft, did you choose?"

"Of course."

"And did it feel different?"

"It felt..." She stopped. "Clean. Like giving a gift."

"I think a chosen link might be stronger than a forced one." Ren's heart began to pound. "If you lent to me, on purpose, with your whole will, would the Ledger treat that as the real contract?"

She stared at him. Pip stared at him. Dara stared at him.

"I don't know," said Ilyra. "I've never tried to override anything."

"Neither have I." He gave her a crooked smile. "Want to find out?"

That night, in the quiet of the cellar, they tried it in a small, careful way. Ilyra pressed her palm to his chest. A cool thread slid into him. The Ledger lit up.

[ CHOSEN LINK ESTABLISHED. ] [ PRIORITY: HIGH. ] [ FORCED LINKS: 4. STATUS: WEAKENED. ]

Ilyra gasped. The gray in her face receded like a tide going out. She sat up, color flooding back into her cheeks, and she laughed in pure, startled delight.

"It worked."

"It worked," said Ren.

But the Ledger had one more line, small and pale.

[ WARNING: CHOSEN LINKS CAN ONLY OVERRIDE FORCED LINKS IN DIRECT CONTEST. ]

In direct contest. He would have to face the champions to cut them.

He closed his hand into a fist and stood. In the morning, the quarterfinals began.