Chapter 3 – The Cost of the Current

The subterranean river of the Duat does not carry dead weight out of charity. We stand in the cavernous lower deck of the sun-barge, the grinding bronze gears echoing against the obsidian hull. The space is pitch-black, save for a row of unlit iron braziers lining the central corridor. Neset watches me in silence, her arms crossed tight over her chest, the stolen ostrich feather still clutched in her hand.

I step to the first brazier. From my sash, I draw a ceremonial bone-knife. I press the jagged edge into the palm of my left hand and pull.

Thick, black blood wells to the surface, cold and viscous. I let a single drop fall into the iron bowl. The moment the blood strikes the metal, a towering golden flame erupts, illuminating the corridor in a harsh, shifting glare. I move to the next brazier. Another drop. Another eruption of fire. The massive paddlewheels outside groan, turning faster as the ship devours my lifeforce to power its escape.

"Every torch," Neset says, her voice meticulously flat, though her eyes track the dark line running down my wrist. "A drop of the Devourer’s blood to bend the river’s current."

I do not look at her. I light the third brazier. "Magic is a transaction, scribe. You want the barge to run from the Regent’s spears, it requires fuel. My authority is the only currency left on this ship." I tear a strip of white linen from my hem and bind my hand, pulling the knot tight with my teeth. The metallic taste of my own blood lingers on my tongue, mingling with the sickening sweetness of the false heart I swallowed in the hall.

The physical toll of the bloodletting hits me. A wave of freezing nausea rolls through my gut. My control slips.

Just for a fraction of a second, the human skin I wear becomes a fragile, translucent film. The torchlight hits my back, casting my shadow against the bronze hull. It is not the shadow of a tall woman. It is a grotesque silhouette—a massive crocodilian snout, the thick mane of a lion, the heavy, crushing shoulders of a beast. I brace a hand against the wall, fighting the violent urge to retch, waiting for the mortal woman behind me to gasp, to shrink away from the monster she has cornered herself with.

Neset does not step back.

The soft scuff of her sandals sounds on the iron grates. She walks directly into my space. The sudden heat of her body is a jarring contrast to the damp chill of the lower deck. She raises her hand. Without hesitation, she presses her ink-stained, calloused fingers flat against the side of my neck, right over the pulsing black vein that feeds the magic.

A jolt of pure adrenaline spikes through my spine. Every muscle in my body locks. The beast beneath my ribs, normally starved and thrashing, goes completely still, stunned by the sheer, suicidal audacity of the touch. Her thumb traces the edge of my jaw, feeling the erratic, violent hammer of my pulse.

I snatch her wrist, pulling her hand away with enough force to bruise, though I stop just short of snapping the bone.

"Do not test my hunger," I whisper, my voice vibrating with a low, unnatural timbre.

Neset’s dark eyes lock onto mine, entirely devoid of fear. "Your pulse is out of rhythm. You swallowed a forged verdict up there, and it is actively poisoning you. You execute the law, Meryt, but you loathe the taste of a lie."

I shove her wrist back toward her, putting a yard of cold air between us. "You manipulate clay and ink. You think justice is a ledger that can be erased and rewritten." I step forward, backing her slowly toward the hull, forcing her to look at the blood soaking through my bandage. "I do not deal in ink. I eat the truth. When a scribe like you carves a lie into a record to save someone’s neck, the system forces me to swallow a phantom sin. The rot happens in my stomach, not on your parchment. You disgust me."

"Then we share a disgust for the forgery," she counters instantly, her back hitting the bronze wall. "The scale was rigged before the heart was even placed. Someone in the Regent’s inner circle is doctoring the weights."

I stare at her, measuring the cold calculation in her face. The paradox binds us. The forensic manipulator and the absolute executioner, trapped in the belly of the same broken machine.

"There is a holding cell at the stern," I say, my tone dropping to a clinical deadpan. "A lesser noble from the upper districts was boarded yesterday, awaiting judgment. If the Regent is tampering with the scales, the aristocracy is paying for the service. We will ask him."

The cell is an iron cage suspended over the rushing dark water. The noble inside is a bloated, silk-draped ghost, pacing nervously. When he sees me step into the torchlight, he drops to his knees, his transparent hands trembling. He expects the Devourer. He expects the end.

Neset steps out from behind me, sliding seamlessly into the role of the bureaucratic inquisitor. We do not plan it; the rhythm simply snaps into place. It is a flawless, zero-sum game of terror and logic.

"The standard tithe for a favorable judgment is three ingots of ghost-gold," Neset states, tapping her scribe’s knife against the iron bars. "But the Regent’s men have raised the price. You couldn’t afford the new weight, could you?"

The noble stammers, looking frantically between the scribe’s knife and my face. I step closer to the bars. I do not speak. I merely let the illusion of my human jaw shift, my teeth elongating just a fraction, the scrape of sharpening enamel audible in the quiet damp.

The noble breaks. He sobs, clawing at his silk robes. "It wasn’t just gold! They didn’t just want gold. They demanded memories. They demand a piece of your past to carve the new name!" From the folds of his garment, he produces a piece of contraband—a shattered mortuary tablet, smuggled out of the archives. He shoves it through the bars toward Neset. "This is what they use! They scrape the old names clean!"

Neset takes the tablet.

The moment her fingers brush the clay, her breath hitches. The analytical mask shatters. Her skin goes entirely pale, her eyes widening as they trace the specific, violent gouges where a name used to be. She recognizes the scraping technique. She knows who held the chisel.

The beast in my chest roars, smelling the raw, unadulterated guilt radiating from the noble. The instinct to consume him, to balance the localized scale of this room, is a physical pain in my jaw. I turn my head, looking at the scribe.

I can tear the iron door off its hinges, eat the soul, and secure the truth of the broken scale right now. But Neset pulls the tablet tight against her ribs, her knuckles turning white. Her eyes dart from the noble to me, calculating.

She has the evidence. If she surrenders it to my investigation, she exposes the corruption of the throne, but she also exposes the ghost from her own past who carved that lie.

I watch her fingers tremble over the blank clay, waiting to see what she will choose to protect.