The air in the Ebon Bazaar weighed on Lucien's lungs like soaked ash—thick and clinging, sour with something older than smoke. It didn't smell like fire anymore, not really. More like a burn rerun too many times until the cinders forgot their shape. Paper, sweat, old blood, and something worse—nobody named it, but everyone smelled it. Still, he dragged himself through anyway, because breathing was mandatory here—even if it tasted like the underside of a dying god's boot.
Beneath his coat, the Silent Ledger throbbed—a second heart. Every pulse echoed the weight of souls tied to bargains he'd forced. Every name whispered guilt in dark tones. He let it tap out a rhythm he could track when the Bazaar's chaos swallowed his senses.
LEDGER UPDATE: CURRENT TARGET: JYN'S BROTHER – VOICE TRACE ACTIVE. TASK: SOUL SEARCH. INFORMANT: LENA – FEEDS DUE IN 1HR. COLLECTIONS OVERDUE: 2/5. THREAT LEVEL: ELEVATED.
Lucien paused, inhaling the suffocating atmosphere. Vendors hawked jars of soul-bound spirits, cursed to dance for whoever drank them. Neon flared through fractured skylights overhead. This wasn't Valthara's mortal sprawl—this was Undergleam, where the immortal and the damned traded in whispers and death.
He spotted Jyn first—a thin figure huddled by a stall piled with broken ward charms. She bent over a floating holo-plate, voice quiet, distant, eyes bright in the gloom. Around her foot scuttled motes of soul-ash, ghost-lights shimmering—the Bazaar's signature echoes of lost contracts.
"Lucien," she whispered as he approached. There was a thread of hope in her tone that felt almost painful—raw and earnest. She tucked the holo-plate inside her coat as he slipped next to her.
"Found anything?" he murmured.
Jyn shook her head slowly. "Nothing direct. But Lena's feeding me runs of soul shipments—the kind Cassian proxies would intercept. I'm watching patterns, but we need bait."
Lucien slid a vial from his coat pocket—crystal-bright, swirling with faint ember-light. "Use this as decoy," he said gently. "Smuggler scent. Reroute watchers. Put drones on the rope."
She nodded, grateful. He passed her another gift.
LEDGER UPDATE: DECOY DEPLOYED – TASK: LENA TRACKING DRONE PATTERNS. KAE LllASS DECOY ACTIVE. THREAT: SPIES REDIRECTED.
"Heavy rains tonight," Lucien said, voice low. "They'll think a slip, not a trap."
Jyn didn't smile—but he saw her eyes brighten. That spark of hope surged again.
"Thanks," she breathed.
Lucien spared her a look full of unspoken promises: Deal first, Jyn second. But the Ledger pulsed hot in his chest:
LEDGER NOTE: HER HOPE BINDS YOU.
And he paused—the Ledger's voice cold but true. He didn't reply.
They moved through the Bazaar's winding paths, following Lena's tip to a smuggler's hollow stacked with stolen relics. Watcher drones had been redirected to the decoy, and the smugglers felt safer—fatally so.
Lucien slipped inside, coat drawn close, eyes scanning for weapons or wordless threats. Kael dressed in shadow, crouched behind crates of soul-inks and warded tokens.
Kael looked up as Lucien entered, tension in his shoulders. "Lucien. Didn't think you'd come here."
Lucien gave a smirk. "Needs must. Got business. You in or out?"
LEDGER UPDATE: TARGET: KAEL. TASK: SOUL BIND PROTOCOL PREPARATION.
Kael wiped dust from an icon and offered a half-grin. "Depends on your meaning of 'business.'"
Lucien produced a crystal chip, rimmed with amber glyph-wards. It pulsed faintly.
"That's the real deal," he said. "Bind protocol courtesy of Valthamur's boon. One signature, your soul's collateral for enough data to flush Cassian's proxies from here."
Kael stared at the chip, swallowed. "And I get what?"
Lucien leaned closer. "A clean ledger on your operations. No more lost shipments, no more Watcher raids."
Kael hesitated, fear flickering across his face—pure instinct of survival. Lucien sensed the moment, calm in the chaos.
LEDGER PROMPT: ENABLE BIND – KAEL'S EMOTIONAL RESISTANCE: 67%. APPROVAL RISK: MODERATE.
"That chip's bound to me. One pulse, your soul's my collateral. But you sign, we flush spies tonight—true intel, mapped drone logs, redirected Watcher feeds. You in?"
Kael's fist clenched at the belt. Sweat dripped from his brow. Jyn watched, silent hopes flickering in her gaze.
Lucien felt the Ledger pulse again, urging. He swallowed the catch of guilt.
LEDGER NOTE: HER HOPE BINDS YOU.
He nodded once to Kael. "Sign."
Kael exhaled, voice trembling: "…Fine."
Lucien tapped the Ledger's spine. The chip glowed, amber runes snaking across Kael's skin. Kael gasped as ghostly seals anchored to his soul.
Kael sank back, eyes wide.
LEDGER ALERT: KAEL SOUL-BIND ACTIVE. EMOTIONAL DAMAGE: 42%. ETHICAL RISK: MODERATE.
Lucien watched the runes fade. Ghost-lights danced. Kael's loyalty to Lucien flickered, fragile.
"Lie low," Lucien murmured. "Let the trap close."
Outside, the Ledger buzzed in his vision with real-time analytics:
TRAP STATUS: SIGIL-WARDS ACTIVATED. DRONE PATH PREDICTION: 88% ACCURATE. PROXY INTERCEPT ETA: 7MINS.
He pressed a glyph on his cuff, releasing ward-lines across the alley—micro traps that bled signals, dampened drone sensors, misled corps. Patterns folded like origami against surveillance.
As Lucien watched, drones diverted into the maze, and voices tensed behind crates. The trap glimmered silent, inhuman, perfect.
"Thanks," Kael murmured as he slipped into the shadows.
Lucien exhaled hard, sweat burning in his chest—exhaustion seeded with triumph.
LEDGER UPDATE: KAEL DEAL SECURED. NEXT: ANALYZE DRONE LOGS. INFORMANT JYN UPDATED. PROXY TRAIL MAPPING.
He returned to Jyn, who was urging Lena to reroute signals. Her face lit at his return.
He nodded once. "Kael's out. Hope you got what you need."
She held his gaze. "More than that," she said softly. "Your help… it means—"
He cut her off quietly, gaze on the runic floor. "Stay safe."
The crackle of another buzzer drifted across stalls—preacher voice sputtering in the background:
"Gray-eyed broker walks the Bazaar... But his ledger can't hold what Cassian's burning loose!"
Lucien's soul clenched. Kael's binding, Jyn's hope—it all rushed in.
LEDGER NOTICE: MARKET EVENT – EBBA MARKET DOWN: PROXY INTERFERENCE DETECTED. SOURCE: KAEL PROXY – POSSIBLE CASSIAN LINK.
Cassian again.
LEDGER RESPONSE: YOU'RE NO BETTER.
Lucien ground his teeth. "Cassian's got no finesse," he muttered. "He's playing dirty."
He swallowed hard, voice bitter. "Time to make things clean."
LEDGER SUGGESTION: DEPLOY STING: TRACE PROXY TO SIGMA-VAULT; EXPOSE FORGERIES PUBLICLY.
He forced the thought into a plan: trace Kael's logs, bait Cassian's proxies into a Sigma-Vault trap, collapse his soul-market network, expose crooked tokens via public feeds.
He turned away to leave Undergleam, thorns of guilt stabbing—Jyn's hope, Kael's subject soul, his own hands dirty.
Passing through the flicker-rift under a cracked grate, world ripped around him in a silent pulse. The Bazaar's cinders clung, then fell away.
When he landed on Valthara's slick cobbles, neon above spat light onto him. He caught Jyn's eyes as she vanished into the haze—hope intact, trembling, but alive.
Lucien let the Ledger pulse steady against his ribs.
LEDGER WARNING: YOU'RE BOUND TO ME.
He took a dark breath through the neon-smoke air and whispered:
"I'm no better."
That vow echoed in the cold night. And already, the filters of his mind sketched out the sting—Cassian's proxies would bleed for their sloppy chaos.
The city throbbed, wounded but restless. And Lucien Blackmoore—ledger in hand—opened his palms to hold it.