Atsuki Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 11 of 17

Miriam's words rang in Atsuki's ears as he climbed the cliff path. Matthias wanted the debt collected. He still believed Atsuki's blood was owed. But Miriam had told him one more thing before he left. "There is a way to fight a blood debt," she had said. "If the debt was already paid, the order cannot claim it twice. Your parents died refusing to pay. Their deaths were the payment. Find the record. A death for a debt closes the ledger." So Atsuki did not run to the monastery. He turned toward the old chapel where the dead were logged. The chapel crypt sat below a broken chapel of worn stone. Webs hung across the arch like torn cloth. Atsuki pushed through them and climbed down cracked steps into the dark. Rows of shelves held boxes of papers. He needed the records from the year his parents died. He needed proof their deaths tied to the oath. Without it, Matthias's claim stood alone. A green glow moved between the shelves. A small woman crouched there, sorting papers by hand. Her wide hat dripped moss and vines. She did not turn. "You breathe too loud for a ghost," she said. "And you smell of river mud." "Who are you?" Atsuki asked. "Morwen Briarthorn. I keep what the priests would burn." She held up a jar of light and studied him. "I watched them cut down your mother and father. I was young. I hid behind that pillar and I did not move." Her voice went flat. "I have kept their papers safe for twenty years, waiting for someone with their faces to come." Atsuki's chest tightened. "I need the record of their deaths. I need it to show the debt was paid." Morwen dug into a box and pulled out a cluster of torn certificates. The paper was brown and frayed. The ink had faded. She spread them on a shelf. Atsuki read his parents' names. He read the date. He read the cause of death: enforcement of oath. But the seals were split down the middle. The lower half of each page, where the debt cleared, was ripped away. "The order tore them," Morwen said. "They kept the half that names the crime. They destroyed the half that closes the debt. Without both halves, these prove nothing. They prove your parents died. They do not prove the debt died with them." Atsuki stared at the torn edges. He had come for proof and found only half of it. The very record that could shield his family had been broken on purpose, by the same hands that killed them. Morwen touched his sleeve. "But I saw where the missing halves went," she said. "Matthias carries them. On his belt. The debt is not closed because he holds the closing." Atsuki gathered the torn pages. His path was clear now. To free his family, he had to take the other halves from the man hunting them.