Chapter 17 · Ash Ledger - Chapter 17: The Keeper's First Order

"Sign it." Mara's voice cut through the vault air like a blade on glass. "Or walk back up there and let Ilan hang you himself."

Rowan stared at the ledger page. His name sat at the top in Mara's careful script, still wet. Below it, a single line waited.

*I, Rowan Vale, accept the mark of Keeper.*

His hand wouldn't move.

"They already think you're dead," Mara said. She stood three feet back, arms crossed, watching him the way you'd watch a man on a ledge. "Bram saw the blood. Ilan's got men tearing the barracks apart looking for your body. You don't sign, you go back up, they'll make sure the blood's real this time."

"And if I do sign?" Rowan's throat was dry. The stone walls pressed in on all sides, the kind of cold that sank into your ribs and stayed. "What happens then?"

"Then you stop being a clerk." Mara stepped closer. Her boots scraped the grit on the floor. "You become the one thing Ilan can't buy, can't threaten, can't kill without the whole march falling into the ground."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting.