Games of Echoes and Bait

Rain slipped through the scaffolded ironwork of the Crimson Market's upper walkways, sizzling where it struck heat vents and rust-slick grates. The entire tier steamed like a forge trying to breathe through iron lungs. Lucien leaned against the overlook, coat collar turned up, rain dripping from the brim of his hat. His gaze tracked the artery pulse of the Market below: neon-washed stalls flickering through mist, traders cloaked in shimmer-veils that rippled like illusion silk, and soul-bargains igniting in reverse—hot bursts of light that shrank inward, like candles un-snuffing.

It moved like machinery. Too clean, too orchestrated. Not quite human anymore.

He wasn't there to hustle. Not tonight.

Tonight, he was there to feel what the hustle had cost him.

The Ledger throbbed under his wrist like a second heartbeat—colder than blood, heavier than guilt. Not a warning. Not a command. Just a dull ache, like a thought it was nearly ready to say aloud. Its glyphs flickered in his peripheral, slow and grainy, like dreams crawling across glass.

LEDGER STATUS: LIVELocation: Crimson Market Upper Deck | Veilshade OverlookRealm: Mid-Layer Construct (Market Codex bound)Contract Load: 11 active | 2 fractured | 4 flagged for decaySoul Boon: Tier III active — integrity stableInformant Drift: Elevated (Cassian contamination probable)Advisory: Clauses compromised within Sector Echo-Three

"Your boons burn souls," it whispered.

Lucien exhaled through his teeth. The fog caught in the air like smoke from a wound. The memory surged up uninvited—sharp and sour.

One father. Three signatures. A clause so elegant it gleamed.

The man had asked for protection. Offered silence in return. Not his own—his daughter's.

One voice traded like coin.

She'd spoken anyway, small and scared.

The Ledger had answered.

Her thoughts unraveled in the middle of a public square. Memory bleeding out. Name gone. Identity wiped like chalk in rain.

Lucien leaned harder into the railing. The rust bit back through his gloves.

"Family paid for my win," he muttered.

It wasn't guilt. Not exactly. It was worse. It was knowing.

The Ledger didn't answer. Just a pulse. Still there. Still watching.

A rusted maintenance drone skittered past on its track, buzzing like a drunk fly. Below, traders argued over sins, whispers, and pieces of self. One glass-faced merchant offered bottled nightmares beside smoked-thought tablets. Another hawked remorse like a drug. The Veilshade stalls churned with spectral trade—nothing solid, all symbolic. It stank of ritual and rot. Somewhere in the margins, Cassian's shadow pulsed through false tokens, riding forged contracts like parasites.

Lucien flicked open the network overlay. The Ledger pulsed hotter, pulling up visual feeds, filtered glyph logs, and sigil traces across the market web. Cassian's proxies were growing bolder—sigils malformed but functional, timing barely wrong, mimic clauses almost indistinguishable.

Three bindings unraveled in two days.

All bore echoes of forged subclauses.

"He's getting sloppy," Lucien muttered under his breath.

RESPONSE: "He learns, and becomes more arrogant."

The Ledger's tone wasn't observational. It was clinical. Like it had already modeled what came next. Like it was counting how many steps remained between now and rupture.

Footsteps echoed behind him.

Jyn Serra stepped from the side hall, hood soaked, goggles crusted with Market mist. Her jacket dripped onto the slats like rain with a grudge. She smelled like rust, static, and burnt capacitor.

"Market's a furnace tonight," she rasped, voice weathered and frayed at the corners. "You picking ghosts again, Blackmoore?"

Lucien gave a crooked smile—tired, pulled thin. "Weighing the blood in the ink."

Jyn smirked, setting her satchel down on a scorched bench. She unwrapped a cloth bundle like it was contraband. A battered tablet blinked to life beneath her fingers, screen warping with old glyph scars.

"Proof you wanted?" she asked, dragging her sleeve across the cracked interface. "I brought tangles."

Names unfolded in layered script. Some burned, some twitched. One punched him right in the gut—a contract he hadn't seen since Sector Twelve imploded in ash and screams.

"He's rerouting through dead brokers," she said, dragging sigil trails across the display. "Shell chains. Ghost terminals. Piggybacking mimic glyphs off old Codex logic. Took five echo layers just to backtrace this one."

Lucien narrowed his eyes. One glyph flickered—too familiar. It looked right. Until it didn't. Like a chord played in the wrong octave.

"Ledger echoes," he muttered. "He's stealing clause rhythm. Not just copying—he's imitating cadence. Texture."

Jyn nodded, face grim. "He's not spoofing. He's trying to crack the Ledger from the inside."

That landed.

Not as paranoia.

As pattern.

The Ledger surged—not bright, but cold. Like ice sliding through the back of his skull.

NOTICE: He hunts me.

Lucien froze. Spine tight. Shoulders sharp. That voice wasn't just data. It had weight. Like someone had cut a slit in code and bled intention into it.

"Pull everything he's touched this month," Lucien said, voice flat. "Compare clause trees. Look for drift. Look for pre-Codex flavor. Anything old."

Jyn was already moving, fingers slicing through overlays. "On it. But it's worse than drift. He's hitting contracts tied to your old work. Before the Ledger. Raw binds."

Lucien went still.

Raw contracts were dangerous. They weren't filtered through clause weavers or broker nodes. They were direct-channel deals. Cut fast. Cut deep. And they echoed.

Sometimes... they remembered you.

"He's targeting my origin trail," Lucien said. "Trying to corrupt it."

Jyn didn't blink. "Or rewrite it. If he taints those roots... you go with them."

The Ledger buzzed, glyphs swarming his vision. Names ignited in his peripheral.

Client Marvek: Clause breach initiated. Integrity 62%.Proxy Signature: Faceless. Pattern mismatch detected.

Contact Lira Than: Glyph contamination. Market seal degrading.Informant Drift: 81%. Cleanse or renegotiate.

Lucien clenched his jaw, rotating his wrist. The Ledger display bloomed outward, painting his skin in red-thread warnings.

Too many names. Too many breaches. Threads loosening where they should've been dead.

"Build the sting."

The Ledger's voice carried finality now. Not suggestion. Instruction.

Lucien nodded once. "We give him bait. A target he can't resist. Old clause format. A sigil chain that looks broken—but incomplete."

"Dangle an unfinished soul-deal," Jyn said. "Let him bite it."

"When he does?" Lucien's eyes darkened. "We sign him into his own collapse."

Jyn gave a slow nod, fingers tapping out encryption strings. She started repacking, but paused.

"Lucien… why's it talking more now?" she asked. "The Ledger. It used to just ping updates. Now it... thinks. Talks back."

Lucien didn't answer right away. He glanced over the railing. Down into the steam-veiled chaos of the Market.

Veiled traders. Broken pacts. Contract fires spiraling upward into air too thin to hold breath.

"Maybe it's not just a system anymore," he said. "Maybe we stopped being separate a long time ago."

Jyn didn't argue. She slipped back into the corridor, her footsteps swallowed by the Market's hum.

Lucien stayed.

The rain had faded into mist, fine as spider-thread. His coat clung to his frame. The metal of the railing steamed where his hand rested. The Ledger whispered softly—never ceasing.

Two informants approaching breach limit. Renegotiation advised.Client Del Fenn: Soul integrity weakening. Boon threshold at 71%.Codex Echo: Cassian proxy net expanding into Spire Four.

Lucien ran a gloved hand through his hair. His voice came out rough.

"This hustle's breaking me."

The Ledger responded without pause.

You are bound to me.

The words weren't cruel. Just... unarguable.

Lucien laughed once. It was empty. Not bitter—just resigned. It sounded like a man who'd long since accepted that survival was sometimes indistinguishable from ruin.

He looked out again, into the breathing neon of the Crimson Market. Another deal sparked down below—one more thread woven into the endless tapestry of debt, hunger, and silent screams.

Cassian wasn't just burning cities anymore.

He was rewriting Lucien's foundation.

And even as the Ledger grew in voice and will...

So did the war.

Lucien Blackmoore stood still, rain dripping from the edge of his coat. The next contract was already forming behind his eyes, and it was going to hurt.

But it would sign just fine.