The Chancellor’s Arithmetic
The Chancellor’s antechamber smelled of lavender and old parchment, a combination designed to soothe. It failed. I stood on a rug that probably cost more than the annual wage of a hundred clerks, my hands folded in front of me, my spine straight as a ruled line. Kaelen stood half a step behind my shoulder, close enough to be a shadow, far enough to be a witness.
Lord Vex’s office was a monument to controlled excess. Bookshelves lined every wall, their spines uniform in height and color—leather-bound, gold-tooled, probably never read. A massive desk of dark wood dominated the center of the room, its surface polished to a mirror shine. Behind it sat the man himself, the Chancellor of the Aetherian Empire, the second most powerful person in the realm.
He looked like a grandfather. That was the first thing I noted, with the cold precision of a trained auditor. Silver hair, neatly combed. A face lined with laugh marks that suggested decades of genuine amusement. Eyes the color of winter slate, warm enough to seem kind. He wore a simple grey robe, unadorned by the medals and sashes that most nobles draped over themselves like peacocks displaying plumage. The lack of ornamentation was itself an ornament. A statement. *I do not need to prove my status.*
“Lady Vane,” he said, rising from his chair with a fluidity that belied his apparent age. “And Auditor Ashford. Please, sit.”
Two chairs faced his desk. They were upholstered in velvet the color of dried blood. I sat. Kaelen remained standing.
Vex’s smile didn’t waver. “The Auditor prefers to stand. I understand. A man of action. I was the same, once.”
“I prefer to stand because I don’t intend to stay long,” Kaelen said. His voice was flat, professional, but I caught the tension in his jaw. He’d been on edge since we’d received the summons, delivered by a page in the Chancellor’s livery who had knocked on the door of our borrowed archive room at the precise moment we’d finished transcribing the last entry from the True Ledger.
Coincidence. I didn’t believe in coincidence. Not anymore.
Vex gestured to a crystal decanter on a side table. “Wine? It’s a vintage from the southern provinces. Quite excellent.”
“No,” I said.
The Chancellor’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes sharpened. He settled back into his chair, folding his hands on the desk in a gesture that mirrored my own habitual posture. I noticed it. He noticed me noticing it. Neither of us commented.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us dispense with pleasantries. You’ve been busy, Lady Vane. Very busy. The Imperial Treasury has not seen this level of activity in—well, in centuries.”
“I prefer to call it work,” I said. “Activity implies motion without purpose.”
“And your work has purpose?”
“It does.”
Vex nodded slowly, as if weighing my words. “I’ve read your file. Both of your files, actually. The one the court prepared when you were arrested for treason, and the one my own people have compiled since. Fascinating reading. You were a woman of… modest reputation before your arrest. A minor noble with a gambling problem and a taste for unsuitable companions. Then, quite suddenly, you became a mathematical prodigy with an encyclopedic knowledge of imperial tax law.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. The discrepancy between Seraphina Vane’s past and my present was a problem I hadn’t yet solved, a line item I couldn’t reconcile. I’d learned to deflect questions about it, but I couldn’t control what the Chancellor’s investigators had uncovered.
“I’m not interested in how you acquired your skills,” Vex continued, as if reading my thoughts. “The empire is full of mysteries. I’ve learned to focus on outcomes rather than origins. And your outcomes have been… remarkable.”
He reached into a drawer and withdrew a single sheet of paper, holding it up between two fingers. “This is a preliminary report from the Treasury’s own auditors. They’ve confirmed the existence of the duplicate entries you identified. They’ve verified the ghost citizens in Census Ledger 47. They’ve even begun to trace the pattern of soul-credit inflation that you and Auditor Ashford uncovered in the basement.”
He set the paper down, his expression unreadable. “You’ve done in three weeks what the Imperial Audit Office hasn’t managed in three hundred years. That takes either extraordinary competence or extraordinary luck. I don’t believe in luck.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “Luck is just an unquantified variable.”
Vex’s smile returned, wider this time. “I like that. I’ll have to remember it.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Which brings me to the purpose of this meeting. I have a proposition for you, Lady Vane.”
I waited. Offers were like contracts. The first draft was always the most favorable to the party making it, and the devil lived in the fine print.
“The empire is facing a crisis,” Vex said. “You’ve uncovered evidence of that crisis. The soul-credit system, the foundation of our entire economy, is built on… irregularities. Some might call them fraud. Others might call them necessary fictions. The distinction, I’ve found, is largely a matter of perspective.”
“Fraud is fraud,” I said. “The ledger doesn’t care about perspective.”
“The ledger is a tool, Lady Vane. Tools serve the hand that wields them.” Vex’s voice remained pleasant, but there was steel beneath the silk. “And the hand that wields the ledger is the Crown. The Crown, in turn, is advised by its Chancellor. Me.”
He paused, letting the implication settle. Then he continued.
“I am prepared to offer you a full restoration of your soul-credit balance. Every point you’ve lost, every debt you’ve incurred, wiped clean. In addition, I will grant you a title—Baroness of the Eastern Marches, a holding with substantial lands and revenues. You will have a seat on the Imperial Council, a voice in the governance of the realm. You will want for nothing, and you will owe nothing.”
The offer hung in the air like a blade suspended over a neck. I could feel Kaelen’s gaze on me, sharp as a scalpel, waiting for my response.
I kept my eyes on Vex. “And in exchange?”
“In exchange, you will cease your audit. You will destroy the True Ledger and all copies of your findings. You will issue a statement retracting your claims, citing errors in your methodology. You will return to your new estate and live a long, comfortable, prosperous life.”
“And the ghost citizens?” I asked. “The duplicate entries? The souls being minted out of thin air?”
Vex waved a hand, dismissing the questions like flies. “Those are matters of imperial policy. They will be addressed in due course, through proper channels, with appropriate discretion. The system is ancient, Lady Vane. It has survived for three hundred years. It will survive a few more decades of careful reform.”
“Reform,” I repeated. “That’s an interesting word. In accounting, reform usually means adjusting the books to reflect reality. But you’re not asking me to adjust the books. You’re asking me to burn them.”
Vex’s smile finally faltered. Just a flicker, a crack in the mask, but I saw it.
“I’m asking you to be reasonable,” he said. “You’ve made your point. You’ve proven your competence. Now you have the opportunity to convert that competence into a comfortable future. Most people in your position would jump at the chance.”
“Most people in my position,” I said, “are dead. I was scheduled for execution three weeks ago. The only reason I’m alive is because I found an error in the arithmetic. I corrected it. I’ve been correcting errors ever since.”
I stood, smoothing the front of my dress. “You’re offering me a bribe, Lord Vex. I’ve seen bribes before. I’ve catalogued them, cross-referenced them, traced them to their sources. They all have one thing in common: they’re always more expensive than the truth.”
Vex’s eyes hardened. The grandfatherly warmth drained from his face, leaving something older and colder beneath. “You’re making a mistake, Lady Vane.”
“I’m making a choice,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” He rose from his chair, and for the first time, I noticed how tall he was. How broad his shoulders were beneath the simple grey robe. “You think you’re the first auditor to discover the truth? You think you’re the first to stand in this office and refuse my offer?”
I said nothing.
“There have been others,” Vex continued, circling the desk. His voice was soft now, almost gentle. “They had your conviction. Your certainty. They believed the ledger was sacred, that the truth would set them free.” He stopped, standing directly in front of me. “They were wrong. The truth doesn’t set you free, Lady Vane. It just tells you what cage you’re in.”
“Then I’ll audit the cage,” I said. “I’ll find the weak points. I’ll calculate the escape velocity.”
Vex laughed. It was a genuine laugh, warm and rich, and it chilled me more than any threat could have. “You’re remarkable. Truly. I haven’t met anyone like you in—well, in a very long time.”
He returned to his desk, sitting down with the air of a man who had just concluded a negotiation he knew he’d won. “I’ll give you one more chance to reconsider. Not because I need your cooperation—I don’t. But because I find you entertaining, and entertainment is rare in my position.”
He picked up a pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote something on a piece of paper. Then he held it up for me to see.
It was a single line: *Seraphina Vane, soul-credit balance: -1,847,203.*
“That’s your current balance,” he said. “As of this morning. By the time you leave this office, it will be lower. By the time you reach your quarters, it will be lower still. Every breath you take, every heartbeat, every moment of consciousness—it all costs. You’re living on borrowed time, Lady Vane. And I control the interest rate.”
I stared at the number. It was worse than I’d calculated. My own audit had placed my balance at roughly -1.2 million, accounting for the transmigration deficit and the accumulated debt of Seraphina’s previous lifestyle. Vex had added nearly 600,000 to that figure. He’d adjusted the books.
“That’s fraudulent,” I said.
“It’s policy,” he replied. “The distinction, as I said, is largely a matter of perspective.”
Kaelen stepped forward, his hand moving toward his sword. “This is an abuse of authority. The Treasury cannot arbitrarily adjust a citizen’s balance without due process.”
Vex raised an eyebrow. “Auditor Ashford. I’d almost forgotten you were here. Tell me, how is your own balance? I believe you’re still in the positive, but these things can change so quickly.”
Kaelen’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
“I thought so.” Vex turned back to me. “You have until the end of the week to reconsider my offer. After that, I’m afraid the consequences will be… terminal. The soul-reclamation process is quite efficient. You’ll be reduced to your constituent parts, your credits redistributed to the treasury. It’s not painful, I’m told. Just final.”
He smiled, and this time there was nothing grandfatherly about it. “Good day, Lady Vane. Auditor Ashford. I trust you can find your own way out.”
We left. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could feel his gaze on my back, calculating, weighing, measuring. He thought he’d won. He thought the threat of death would be enough to break me.
He didn’t understand. I’d already died once. The paper-jam had been my first execution, and I’d survived it. I’d woken up in a stranger’s body, in a world where magic ran on credit and souls were currency. I’d spent three weeks auditing a system that had been corrupt for three centuries.
Death wasn’t the worst outcome. The worst outcome was leaving the ledger unbalanced.
Kaelen waited until we were three corridors away before he spoke. “That was either the bravest thing I’ve ever seen or the stupidest.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” I said.
He stopped, turning to face me. His eyes were dark, intense, searching my face for something I wasn’t sure I had. “He’s going to kill you. You know that, right? He’s going to zero out your balance and let the system do the rest.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still going to fight him?”
I met his gaze. “I’m an accountant, Kaelen. I don’t fight. I reconcile.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen from him, and it transformed his sharp, guarded features into something almost warm.
“You’re insane,” he said.
“I’m thorough,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes. Insanity is unpredictable. Thoroughness is inevitable.”
I started walking again, my heels clicking against the marble floor. Behind me, I heard Kaelen fall into step.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“The plan,” I said, “is to find out why Lord Vex is so desperate to keep the True Ledger hidden. He offered me a title, a fortune, a clean balance. That’s not the offer of a man who’s confident in his position. That’s the offer of a man who’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
I stopped at the end of the corridor, looking out through a tall window at the city below. The Aetherian Empire spread out before me, its towers gleaming in the afternoon sun, its streets thrumming with the lives of millions of souls, all of them tracked, all of them priced, all of them balanced against a ledger that was built on lies.
“Afraid of what happens when the numbers stop adding up,” I said. “Afraid of what happens when people realize the system is broken. Afraid of what happens when they start asking questions.”
I turned to face him. “He’s not afraid of me, Kaelen. He’s afraid of what I represent. The possibility that the truth might be worth more than the lie.”
Kaelen was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “So what do we do?”
“We do what we’ve been doing,” I said. “We audit. We trace. We follow the numbers wherever they lead.”
“And if they lead to the Emperor?”
I smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile. It was the smile of a woman who had already died once and wasn’t afraid to do it again.
“Then we audit the Emperor.”
The candle in my quarters had burned down to nothing by the time I finished my calculations. I sat in the dark, surrounded by sheets of paper covered in figures, and stared at the final number.
Lord Vex had adjusted my balance to -1,847,203. But he’d made a mistake. He’d assumed I would only look at my own account.
I’d looked at his.
The Chancellor’s soul-credit balance was listed as 4,203,119. A substantial fortune, enough to fund a small army or buy a dozen noble titles. But I’d cross-referenced his account against the True Ledger, and I’d found something interesting.
His balance had been increasing steadily for the past three hundred years. Not through legitimate accumulation, but through a series of transfers from accounts belonging to deceased individuals. The transfers were labeled “estate settlements” and “inheritance disbursements,” but the timing was too regular, the amounts too precise.
Lord Vex wasn’t just the architect of the soul-credit system. He was its primary beneficiary.
And he’d been stealing from the dead for three centuries.
I set down my pen and looked at the numbers one more time. Then I folded the paper, tucked it into my sleeve, and blew out the candle.
Tomorrow, I would tell Kaelen what I’d found. Tomorrow, we would plan our next move.
Tonight, I would sleep. An auditor’s mind needed rest. The numbers would still be there in the morning.
They always were.
Lord Vex’s office was a monument to controlled excess. Bookshelves lined every wall, their spines uniform in height and color—leather-bound, gold-tooled, probably never read. A massive desk of dark wood dominated the center of the room, its surface polished to a mirror shine. Behind it sat the man himself, the Chancellor of the Aetherian Empire, the second most powerful person in the realm.
He looked like a grandfather. That was the first thing I noted, with the cold precision of a trained auditor. Silver hair, neatly combed. A face lined with laugh marks that suggested decades of genuine amusement. Eyes the color of winter slate, warm enough to seem kind. He wore a simple grey robe, unadorned by the medals and sashes that most nobles draped over themselves like peacocks displaying plumage. The lack of ornamentation was itself an ornament. A statement. *I do not need to prove my status.*
“Lady Vane,” he said, rising from his chair with a fluidity that belied his apparent age. “And Auditor Ashford. Please, sit.”
Two chairs faced his desk. They were upholstered in velvet the color of dried blood. I sat. Kaelen remained standing.
Vex’s smile didn’t waver. “The Auditor prefers to stand. I understand. A man of action. I was the same, once.”
“I prefer to stand because I don’t intend to stay long,” Kaelen said. His voice was flat, professional, but I caught the tension in his jaw. He’d been on edge since we’d received the summons, delivered by a page in the Chancellor’s livery who had knocked on the door of our borrowed archive room at the precise moment we’d finished transcribing the last entry from the True Ledger.
Coincidence. I didn’t believe in coincidence. Not anymore.
Vex gestured to a crystal decanter on a side table. “Wine? It’s a vintage from the southern provinces. Quite excellent.”
“No,” I said.
The Chancellor’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes sharpened. He settled back into his chair, folding his hands on the desk in a gesture that mirrored my own habitual posture. I noticed it. He noticed me noticing it. Neither of us commented.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us dispense with pleasantries. You’ve been busy, Lady Vane. Very busy. The Imperial Treasury has not seen this level of activity in—well, in centuries.”
“I prefer to call it work,” I said. “Activity implies motion without purpose.”
“And your work has purpose?”
“It does.”
Vex nodded slowly, as if weighing my words. “I’ve read your file. Both of your files, actually. The one the court prepared when you were arrested for treason, and the one my own people have compiled since. Fascinating reading. You were a woman of… modest reputation before your arrest. A minor noble with a gambling problem and a taste for unsuitable companions. Then, quite suddenly, you became a mathematical prodigy with an encyclopedic knowledge of imperial tax law.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. The discrepancy between Seraphina Vane’s past and my present was a problem I hadn’t yet solved, a line item I couldn’t reconcile. I’d learned to deflect questions about it, but I couldn’t control what the Chancellor’s investigators had uncovered.
“I’m not interested in how you acquired your skills,” Vex continued, as if reading my thoughts. “The empire is full of mysteries. I’ve learned to focus on outcomes rather than origins. And your outcomes have been… remarkable.”
He reached into a drawer and withdrew a single sheet of paper, holding it up between two fingers. “This is a preliminary report from the Treasury’s own auditors. They’ve confirmed the existence of the duplicate entries you identified. They’ve verified the ghost citizens in Census Ledger 47. They’ve even begun to trace the pattern of soul-credit inflation that you and Auditor Ashford uncovered in the basement.”
He set the paper down, his expression unreadable. “You’ve done in three weeks what the Imperial Audit Office hasn’t managed in three hundred years. That takes either extraordinary competence or extraordinary luck. I don’t believe in luck.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “Luck is just an unquantified variable.”
Vex’s smile returned, wider this time. “I like that. I’ll have to remember it.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Which brings me to the purpose of this meeting. I have a proposition for you, Lady Vane.”
I waited. Offers were like contracts. The first draft was always the most favorable to the party making it, and the devil lived in the fine print.
“The empire is facing a crisis,” Vex said. “You’ve uncovered evidence of that crisis. The soul-credit system, the foundation of our entire economy, is built on… irregularities. Some might call them fraud. Others might call them necessary fictions. The distinction, I’ve found, is largely a matter of perspective.”
“Fraud is fraud,” I said. “The ledger doesn’t care about perspective.”
“The ledger is a tool, Lady Vane. Tools serve the hand that wields them.” Vex’s voice remained pleasant, but there was steel beneath the silk. “And the hand that wields the ledger is the Crown. The Crown, in turn, is advised by its Chancellor. Me.”
He paused, letting the implication settle. Then he continued.
“I am prepared to offer you a full restoration of your soul-credit balance. Every point you’ve lost, every debt you’ve incurred, wiped clean. In addition, I will grant you a title—Baroness of the Eastern Marches, a holding with substantial lands and revenues. You will have a seat on the Imperial Council, a voice in the governance of the realm. You will want for nothing, and you will owe nothing.”
The offer hung in the air like a blade suspended over a neck. I could feel Kaelen’s gaze on me, sharp as a scalpel, waiting for my response.
I kept my eyes on Vex. “And in exchange?”
“In exchange, you will cease your audit. You will destroy the True Ledger and all copies of your findings. You will issue a statement retracting your claims, citing errors in your methodology. You will return to your new estate and live a long, comfortable, prosperous life.”
“And the ghost citizens?” I asked. “The duplicate entries? The souls being minted out of thin air?”
Vex waved a hand, dismissing the questions like flies. “Those are matters of imperial policy. They will be addressed in due course, through proper channels, with appropriate discretion. The system is ancient, Lady Vane. It has survived for three hundred years. It will survive a few more decades of careful reform.”
“Reform,” I repeated. “That’s an interesting word. In accounting, reform usually means adjusting the books to reflect reality. But you’re not asking me to adjust the books. You’re asking me to burn them.”
Vex’s smile finally faltered. Just a flicker, a crack in the mask, but I saw it.
“I’m asking you to be reasonable,” he said. “You’ve made your point. You’ve proven your competence. Now you have the opportunity to convert that competence into a comfortable future. Most people in your position would jump at the chance.”
“Most people in my position,” I said, “are dead. I was scheduled for execution three weeks ago. The only reason I’m alive is because I found an error in the arithmetic. I corrected it. I’ve been correcting errors ever since.”
I stood, smoothing the front of my dress. “You’re offering me a bribe, Lord Vex. I’ve seen bribes before. I’ve catalogued them, cross-referenced them, traced them to their sources. They all have one thing in common: they’re always more expensive than the truth.”
Vex’s eyes hardened. The grandfatherly warmth drained from his face, leaving something older and colder beneath. “You’re making a mistake, Lady Vane.”
“I’m making a choice,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” He rose from his chair, and for the first time, I noticed how tall he was. How broad his shoulders were beneath the simple grey robe. “You think you’re the first auditor to discover the truth? You think you’re the first to stand in this office and refuse my offer?”
I said nothing.
“There have been others,” Vex continued, circling the desk. His voice was soft now, almost gentle. “They had your conviction. Your certainty. They believed the ledger was sacred, that the truth would set them free.” He stopped, standing directly in front of me. “They were wrong. The truth doesn’t set you free, Lady Vane. It just tells you what cage you’re in.”
“Then I’ll audit the cage,” I said. “I’ll find the weak points. I’ll calculate the escape velocity.”
Vex laughed. It was a genuine laugh, warm and rich, and it chilled me more than any threat could have. “You’re remarkable. Truly. I haven’t met anyone like you in—well, in a very long time.”
He returned to his desk, sitting down with the air of a man who had just concluded a negotiation he knew he’d won. “I’ll give you one more chance to reconsider. Not because I need your cooperation—I don’t. But because I find you entertaining, and entertainment is rare in my position.”
He picked up a pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote something on a piece of paper. Then he held it up for me to see.
It was a single line: *Seraphina Vane, soul-credit balance: -1,847,203.*
“That’s your current balance,” he said. “As of this morning. By the time you leave this office, it will be lower. By the time you reach your quarters, it will be lower still. Every breath you take, every heartbeat, every moment of consciousness—it all costs. You’re living on borrowed time, Lady Vane. And I control the interest rate.”
I stared at the number. It was worse than I’d calculated. My own audit had placed my balance at roughly -1.2 million, accounting for the transmigration deficit and the accumulated debt of Seraphina’s previous lifestyle. Vex had added nearly 600,000 to that figure. He’d adjusted the books.
“That’s fraudulent,” I said.
“It’s policy,” he replied. “The distinction, as I said, is largely a matter of perspective.”
Kaelen stepped forward, his hand moving toward his sword. “This is an abuse of authority. The Treasury cannot arbitrarily adjust a citizen’s balance without due process.”
Vex raised an eyebrow. “Auditor Ashford. I’d almost forgotten you were here. Tell me, how is your own balance? I believe you’re still in the positive, but these things can change so quickly.”
Kaelen’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
“I thought so.” Vex turned back to me. “You have until the end of the week to reconsider my offer. After that, I’m afraid the consequences will be… terminal. The soul-reclamation process is quite efficient. You’ll be reduced to your constituent parts, your credits redistributed to the treasury. It’s not painful, I’m told. Just final.”
He smiled, and this time there was nothing grandfatherly about it. “Good day, Lady Vane. Auditor Ashford. I trust you can find your own way out.”
We left. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could feel his gaze on my back, calculating, weighing, measuring. He thought he’d won. He thought the threat of death would be enough to break me.
He didn’t understand. I’d already died once. The paper-jam had been my first execution, and I’d survived it. I’d woken up in a stranger’s body, in a world where magic ran on credit and souls were currency. I’d spent three weeks auditing a system that had been corrupt for three centuries.
Death wasn’t the worst outcome. The worst outcome was leaving the ledger unbalanced.
Kaelen waited until we were three corridors away before he spoke. “That was either the bravest thing I’ve ever seen or the stupidest.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” I said.
He stopped, turning to face me. His eyes were dark, intense, searching my face for something I wasn’t sure I had. “He’s going to kill you. You know that, right? He’s going to zero out your balance and let the system do the rest.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still going to fight him?”
I met his gaze. “I’m an accountant, Kaelen. I don’t fight. I reconcile.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen from him, and it transformed his sharp, guarded features into something almost warm.
“You’re insane,” he said.
“I’m thorough,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes. Insanity is unpredictable. Thoroughness is inevitable.”
I started walking again, my heels clicking against the marble floor. Behind me, I heard Kaelen fall into step.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“The plan,” I said, “is to find out why Lord Vex is so desperate to keep the True Ledger hidden. He offered me a title, a fortune, a clean balance. That’s not the offer of a man who’s confident in his position. That’s the offer of a man who’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
I stopped at the end of the corridor, looking out through a tall window at the city below. The Aetherian Empire spread out before me, its towers gleaming in the afternoon sun, its streets thrumming with the lives of millions of souls, all of them tracked, all of them priced, all of them balanced against a ledger that was built on lies.
“Afraid of what happens when the numbers stop adding up,” I said. “Afraid of what happens when people realize the system is broken. Afraid of what happens when they start asking questions.”
I turned to face him. “He’s not afraid of me, Kaelen. He’s afraid of what I represent. The possibility that the truth might be worth more than the lie.”
Kaelen was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “So what do we do?”
“We do what we’ve been doing,” I said. “We audit. We trace. We follow the numbers wherever they lead.”
“And if they lead to the Emperor?”
I smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile. It was the smile of a woman who had already died once and wasn’t afraid to do it again.
“Then we audit the Emperor.”
The candle in my quarters had burned down to nothing by the time I finished my calculations. I sat in the dark, surrounded by sheets of paper covered in figures, and stared at the final number.
Lord Vex had adjusted my balance to -1,847,203. But he’d made a mistake. He’d assumed I would only look at my own account.
I’d looked at his.
The Chancellor’s soul-credit balance was listed as 4,203,119. A substantial fortune, enough to fund a small army or buy a dozen noble titles. But I’d cross-referenced his account against the True Ledger, and I’d found something interesting.
His balance had been increasing steadily for the past three hundred years. Not through legitimate accumulation, but through a series of transfers from accounts belonging to deceased individuals. The transfers were labeled “estate settlements” and “inheritance disbursements,” but the timing was too regular, the amounts too precise.
Lord Vex wasn’t just the architect of the soul-credit system. He was its primary beneficiary.
And he’d been stealing from the dead for three centuries.
I set down my pen and looked at the numbers one more time. Then I folded the paper, tucked it into my sleeve, and blew out the candle.
Tomorrow, I would tell Kaelen what I’d found. Tomorrow, we would plan our next move.
Tonight, I would sleep. An auditor’s mind needed rest. The numbers would still be there in the morning.
They always were.