The city of Vireth stank of gold.
Not the crisp, metallic tang of fresh coin—no, this was the stench of old wealth. Of rot gilded in silk. It reeked of kingdoms bought and forgotten, of blood bargains made in vaults far from the light. Even the rain shimmered faintly here, falling like molten copper through the streetlamps' gleam.
Kael Veylor crouched beneath a rusted awning in Ironmarket Alley, watching the merchant across the street. The man was struggling with his sigil-lock, a shimmering orb of arcane light that responded only to bloodline and balance. He wore velvet sleeves stitched with tax-runes and rings on every finger—each one a minor ward, enchanted not for protection, but preservation. Preservation of secrets. Of debts. Of sins.
"That's him?" asked Sera Mourn, voice low. Her cloak, stitched from repurposed debt-script, rustled as she joined him. Inked numbers curled across the fabric like living vines.
"Grigor Marr," Kael confirmed. "Twelve Minor Accountants. Subservient to the Gilded Council. Keeper of the Lower Vault."
"And stupid enough to check it at night?" she asked.
"No," Kael said. "Confident enough to think he's untouchable."
The sigil-lock hissed open. A faint wash of blue light spilled out, illuminating stacked coffers and bone-white ledger scrolls bound in metal clasps. Grigor stepped inside, humming a tune as old as the Council itself. Once, it had been a hymn to prosperity. Now it meant something closer to keep paying or vanish.
Kael moved. Silent as unwritten debt, he crossed the cobbled street, slipping beneath a curtain of enchanted rainfall. The magic here was subtle—watchful. It pressed against him like velvet, sensing movement, intent, desire. He held his breath and walked with purpose, slipping through the wards like a thief through fog.
Sera followed, her fingers grazing a glyph etched into the wall as she passed. It shimmered—just once—then stilled.
Inside the vault, Grigor Marr was humming louder now, his back to them as he counted bars with a glowing abacus.
Kael's eyes drifted to the centerpiece of the vault: a pedestal of black obsidian etched with runes from a language lost in the first Rewrite. There, floating above it, hovered a coin unlike any other.
It wasn't gold. Not entirely. Its surface was dark, etched with impossible symbols that shimmered between languages—Old Imperial, Bone-Script, Merchant Cant. It pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat.
The Tyrant's Coin.
He reached for it.
His fingers brushed the edge—and the world shifted.
A whisper clawed at the edge of his hearing. Not sound. Debt, unpaid. A thousand voices speaking through one mouth. Promises broken, contracts enforced, names carved in ink and fire.
He clenched his jaw and took it.
Grigor stopped humming.
Kael froze.
"You shouldn't be here," the merchant said, still facing the wall.
"I'm aware," Kael replied evenly.
Grigor turned. His eyes weren't angry. They were calm—almost amused.
"You know what that is?"
Kael lifted the coin between two fingers. "I know what it cost to keep it hidden."
Grigor chuckled. "And I know what it will cost you to steal it."
The walls of the vault shivered. Dust fell from the ceiling like ash. The floor beneath them pulsed—briefly—and Kael realized it wasn't just a vault. It was a mouth. A living part of the Council's system. And now it had tasted him.
Grigor stepped forward—and his skin began to shimmer. Veins of molten gold surged beneath the surface, his teeth elongating into daggers of coin-silver. The enchantments on his rings flared, one after another, as his form twisted into something wealth-born and inhuman.
"The Ledger watches," he intoned, voice doubled.
"So do I," Sera said, stepping past Kael.
She lifted her staff, etched with sigils of counter-accountancy—magic stolen from the Audit Priests. The tip glowed blue.
Grigor lunged.
The staff struck first.
A circle of runes burst from the staff and slammed into Grigor's chest. He screamed as his body locked midair, golden veins bulging, twisting. Then he shattered—not into flesh and blood, but into coins.
Hundreds of them. They clattered to the floor with a sound like laughter.
Kael exhaled.
"You good?" Sera asked, her voice tight with residual spell-burn.
He nodded, staring at the coin in his palm.
"What the hell did I just steal?"
Sera looked grim. "A key to the Rewrite. Every hundred years, the Gilded Council opens the Ledger and allows the richest to rewrite reality. That coin proves you've entered the Game."
"I didn't enter," Kael said. "I broke in."
"Same thing, to them."
From the outer streets, a new sound erupted—low, heavy, and wrong. Sirens. Not of metal or horn, but of pressure. Gravity itself vibrating in warning.
The Council knew.
They ran.
---
The Dust Quarter sat at the far edge of Vireth, where the soot from the forge districts mixed with the ash of burned ledgers. It was a graveyard of failed ventures, condemned homes, and forgotten laws. Here, gold meant little and survival meant more.
Kael slammed the door behind them, bolting it with a gesture that sealed the wood with a rune of warding.
Inside the hideout—an abandoned taxhouse—the air was thick with stale incense and old magic. Sera lit a glyph with her thumb, casting a dull glow over a wide table covered in relics, relic-fakes, and fractured scrip.
Kael placed the Tyrant's Coin in the center.
It pulsed again. Faintly.
Sera crouched, staring at it.
"It doesn't look like much," Kael said.
"It's not meant to," she replied. "Wealth this old hides itself. That coin belonged to the first man who rewrote the world. Before gods, before borders. He bought fire from dragons. He sold time to kings. Then he made the Council to keep it all."
Kael picked it up again. "And now I'm in their crosshairs."
"You're in their game," Sera said. "And you've got ten days before the first Auction."
"Auction?"
She nodded. "The rules are simple. The Council doesn't kill you outright. They bid for you. Not with coin, but with power. They offer miracles, knowledge, armies. If you win an Auction, you rise. If you lose..."
She trailed off.
Kael turned the coin over.
"Then I'll win."
Sera raised an eyebrow. "You can't even buy a warding seal right now."
"Then I'll steal one," he said.
"That's the spirit," she muttered.