Boots pound closer through the passage, but the ledger in Talimaryl’s pack gives off a sharp, answering heat. The blackened coffer’s ruin still smolders on the floor, and in the ash, thin silver lines begin to crawl, like a map trying to reform.
Talimaryl
The ledger is keyed to the same system.
The Deserter Soldier braces near the wall, breathing hard, while the Messenger backs toward the exit and stares at the moving lines. They do not touch the air, yet the marks align into names, routes, and watch posts, the baron’s hidden net laid bare.
The Messenger
That is how he tracks them. Not just the camp, the whole road.
The Deserter Soldier
Then every marked man is a leash. Every debt is a collar.
From deeper in the passage, a harsh voice barks for the ledger. The silver lines shiver, then flare toward Talimaryl’s pack, as if the baron’s watching magic has found its stolen eye.
The way forward is sudden and clear. If Talimaryl holds the ledger, he holds proof of the baron’s parasitic control, and the next steps to break it before the guards close in.
Slip away from the baron’s vanguard with the ledger
Expose the baron’s hidden control network