Page 76

Mira watches the black band. “That one is restricted.”

“They are all restricted.”

“That one is restricted in the ‘please enjoy dying for reading this’ way.”

“Then we should read quickly.”

She exhales through her nose and moves closer. “I hate when you make sense in the worst possible direction.”

We unroll the first record across the table.

The handwriting is older than the prior scroll, dense and precise, with notation marks in at least three different hands. I recognize the outer style immediately as early Sylmorne legal architecture, back when their family still preferred to hide soul-harvesting clauses under inheritance law rather than trade agreements. The margins contain infernal syntax amendments, structural diagrams, and several references to bloodline harmonics that make my skin prickle beneath my sleeves.

Then I see the first name.

Ardyn.

My breath catches so quickly Mira’s hand moves toward my arm.

“What?” she asks.

I point.

The notation sits in a clause comparison table, half buried under abbreviations and old legal shorthand.

Ardyn collateral line: viable under mortal-to-infernal rewrite conditions if paired with Dareth harmonic stabilizer.

Mira leans over the page, lips moving silently as she reads. “That cannot mean what it sounds like.”

“It can.”

“I hate that.”

“So do I.”

The table continues across the page, listing names, conditions, failures, compatible strains, and probable outcomes. Most entries end in collapse, predation, madness, or nonviability. Several contain cold little notes about children born weak, adults who burned through lifespan too quickly, and experimental contract families rendered “unsuitable for continuation.” My stomach turns, but I keep reading because disgust is not useful until it becomes evidence.

Another Ardyn notation appears near the lower margin.

Delayed transformation possible after heart-bound wasting event. Lifespan collateral insufficient. Recommend adaptive rewrite clause through infernal authority if Dareth stabilizer proximity is probable.

I press my fingers against the table to keep them still.

Corin was not a miracle accident in isolation. The contract that saved him, the one that rewrote his body instead of letting him die, may have followed grooves cut generations before either of us existed.

Mira’s face has gone pale. “Iso.”

“I see it.”

“His bloodline and yours are both named.”

“Yes.”

“That means someone planned for this.”

“Not precisely this,” I say, though my voice sounds too calm even to me. “They planned for a possibility. A system. A compatibility event.”

“That is a sterile way to describe generations of people being arranged like pieces on a game board.”