Contracts Sealed in Limelight

The neon spilled down the narrow alleys of Valthara like fresh blood, messy and raw, dripping over cracked bricks and pooling in oil-slick puddles. This city didn't leave shadows unguarded, not even the ones that slipped through heaps of garbage and fading graffiti sprayed by desperate hands.

Lucien Blackmoore stepped into the mess like he belonged there, boots slapping wet pavement, coat collar pulled up tight against damp cold that pushed into his skin like it was trying to freeze his blood in place. The ledger throbbed under his coat, steady, a constant reminder that he was carrying more than just papers tonight—names, debts, lives tangled in contracts too tight to cut loose.

LEDGER TASK UPDATE: Informant Contact – Lila Varin. Status: Active. Target Tag: Aether disruptor sale flagged by Cassian interference.

The alley around him was chaos: stacks of crates teetering like they might collapse under their own weight. Smoke curled in lazy spirals from street grills, mixing with the ever-present haze into a ghostly soup of grit and grit alone. Behind the neon and the rot, the city pulsed like a beast that hadn't slept in years, eyes everywhere watching every twitch and shuffle.

He tapped a glyph hidden along the inside seam of his glove. A shimmer bloomed at the corner of the alley—a projected image of his own silhouette, hunched and moving slow, limping toward a back exit. Another tap, another decoy mirrored his route but with a different gait. The drones wouldn't know which one to trace until it was too late.

LEDGER SYSTEM – DECOY SIGNATURES DEPLOYED. Drone rerouting expected in 00:00:15.

Lucien waited three beats, watched the nearest drone twitch in its pattern, then turned sharply into the Spliceway Arch and crossed the veil between two worlds.

The shift hit like a slap—air pressure jolting, sounds narrowing to an almost sterile quiet. One second he was inside the grimy belly of Valthara Prime, all rot and neon, and the next, the sharp blue-white geometry of Nyx encoded itself into reality. The Nyx Facility pulsed cold and clinical. Hallways lit in rhythm, humming beneath his boots with restrained energy.

Lucien exhaled once. He hated Nyx's sterility. It reminded him of the Vaults, the way every corner felt like it had been scrubbed of humanity. Except here, the inhumanity was part of the design.

A flicker overhead—surveillance drone, newer make. He ducked behind a glowing panel console and tapped the Ledger.

LEDGER READING: Nyx Facility (Class: Black Sector). Intel node: Lila Varin. Trust coefficient: 0.72. Surveillance active. Cassian cipher potential: Confirmed.

COLLECTION DUE – Contract #C-8912: Runesmith A. Kell. Warning: 2 cycles overdue.

"I'll get to it," Lucien muttered under his breath, teeth grit. "One war at a time."

Footsteps approached—heels sharp against polymer flooring. Not guards. Too light. Lila.

She stepped into view from a shadowy corridor, cloak drawn tight, data slate tucked under one arm. Her eyes flicked to Lucien, then to the corners, checking for drones. She didn't speak, just nodded. The way she always did when nerves threatened to betray her.

Lucien straightened. "You're late."

She scowled. "I had to triple loop the route. Nyx security's twitchy tonight. Too many anomalies on the grid."

"You mean Cassian."

Lila flinched, but only slightly. "I found something. But I had to burn a contact for it. He screamed all the way down the echo lift."

Lucien's jaw clenched. "Show me."

She passed the slate. He tapped the Ledger to sync.

LEDGER LINKING TO EXTERNAL SLATE. Signature flagged: Cassian cipher variant – GYRE/INVERT.

The glyphs across the screen weren't elegant. They were jagged, etched in erratic patterns. A dead language reassembled like broken glass.

"Sloppy," he murmured.

Lila raised a brow. "Sloppy doesn't mean safe."

Lucien's eyes narrowed. "It's bait. He wants someone curious enough to follow this. Or desperate enough to think they can beat him to the punch."

Behind them, the drone pattern shifted. Red lights blinked across the hallway wall. Four sentinels now. Two changing formation.

The Ledger pulsed harder.

DRONE ROTATION UPDATED. Predicted path intersects Lila Varin in 00:01:27. Evasion not advised.

Lucien's knuckles tightened around the slate. The drones were locking in on movement—and Lila had trailed too much heat coming in.

"I can scramble their scan, but not without pulling from your trace," she said quietly, watching his reaction. "You want me out, you've got sixty seconds."

Lucien didn't move.

The Ledger flared beneath his coat, not just a pulse now—but a deeper thrum. Not a warning. A sentence.

LEDGER MESSAGE: Her soul's on you.

"Damn you," he muttered. Not to Lila. To the ghost in his pocket. To the book that bled guilt like ink.

He turned, tapped a new sequence on the wall console. A security alert faked—localized breach. One level below. The drones would veer.

DECOY INJECTION COMPLETE. Projected drone deviation: 62%. Risk factor: Lila – Moderate.

She stared at him. "You just traded a bluff for a death sentence."

Lucien grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Her risk was my win."

He slipped a tracer into the back of her cloak. It shimmered once and vanished into the threads.

"If you survive, track the sigils to the Gloamhall perimeter. I'll leave a message there."

"You're risking me for a breadcrumb," she snapped.

He stepped closer. "Cassian's trails don't rot. They bloom. Someone has to walk through the weeds."

Lila's mouth opened, then shut. A beat passed between them.

"I'll go. But you better not get poetic about it later," she muttered.

Lucien only nodded.

She darted down the north hallway, disappearing into light and glass. The drones veered, just barely—chasing the flicker Lucien had sold them.

He watched until she was gone. Then he turned to the cipher again, decoding symbols into fragments. A name. A location. An invitation.

CASSIAN MARK LOCATED. Subtext reads: 'Tally the broken. The gate yawns.'

Lucien scrawled the cipher into the wall with the edge of his ring. Over it, he carved another—his own seal. A layered trap. He didn't need Cassian to take the bait. He needed Cassian to think Lucien already had.

The Ledger warmed.

LEDGER: Trap configured. Target response projected within 18–36 hours. Warning: Countertrap likely.

Lucien stepped back from the sigils and muttered, "Cassian's traps are sloppy."

The Ledger's pulse twisted.

RESPONSE: So are yours.

Lucien stared at the message, breath slow, coiled tight in his chest. The Ledger never spoke unless it meant it.

He flicked his coat shut and stepped through the veil again—this time back into the filth of Valthara Prime. The cold slammed him like a fist. Smog, neon, rot. It grounded him.

The drones were gone now, replaced by silence and a waiting hush.

He exhaled, long and steady.

The Ledger pulsed like a heart.

COLLECTION DUE: Two contracts. One loyalty. One pending.

Lucien smirked. "She'll survive. Her loyalty stung. But it held."

He walked deeper into the sprawl, boots finding rhythm on cracked stone.

Cassian's chaos had slipped a toe into his circle, but Lucien was already tracing the arc of the next move. Another cipher. Another world. Another trap.

And behind it all, the book pulsed with judgment.

He didn't need its approval.

But it was always there.