Nars didn't blink. The grief that had threatened to drown him only minutes ago hadn't vanished; it had simply frozen, turning into a jagged sheet of ice that coated his heart. He looked at Silas, the mismatched eyes of the doctor gleaming with greed.
The world was no longer a place of parents and medicine. It was a ledger. And Silas was an expense Nars couldn't afford to leave on the books.
"Ten coins," Nars whispered.
Silas opened his mouth to reply, perhaps to negotiate or to offer a fake promise of silence. He never got the chance.
Nars moved with a speed born of a century's worth of stored life. He didn't punch; he simply placed his palm against Silas's chest.
[Enactment: Forced Liquidation]
Unlike the accident with his parents, Nars focused. He didn't try to anchor Silas to the world; he tried to remove him from it. He visualized the "Rot" that haunted his own skin and pushed it outward, forcing the doctor's body into a state of total, localized bankruptcy.
Silas didn't scream. His lungs turned to brittle lace before he could draw breath. His silver needle-fingers tarnished and crumbled. In three seconds, the man who had just stitched Nars' arm was nothing more than a hollow, upright husk.
[Vitality Harvested: 18 Years, 6 Months] [Current Balance: 122y: 9m: 10d]
The Disposal
Nars looked at the husk. He remembered the blue fire—the heat, the smell, the injury that had led him here. Fire was loud. Fire left evidence. Fire was a "Lesser" way.
He looked at the jars of bioluminescent algae and the surgical waste in the corner. Using his [Sovereign's Appraisal], he saw the molecular "Cost" of the biological matter in the room.
"Merge," he commanded, burning a week of his life to fuel the enactment.
[Vitality Deducted: 7 Days]
Instead of burning the body, Nars accelerated its decomposition to a terminal degree. The husk of Silas didn't catch fire; it melted. It turned into a grey, nutrient-rich sludge that seeped into the porous dirt of the cellar floor. Within a minute, there was no Silas. There was only a slightly damp patch of earth that smelled of ancient forest floor and nothing more.
No smoke. No alarm. Just silence.
The New Path
Nars walked to the back of the den, his silver-scarred arm feeling stronger than the rest of his body. He found Silas's "Currency Safe"—a lead-lined box containing a few dozens of Laughter-Gems and a single, glowing Scream-Shard.
He didn't take them for the magic. He took them because, in the "Farms" of the 7 Arch-Debtors, currency was the only passport.
He stepped out of the cellar and back into the Lower Gutters. The rain was still falling, but he didn't feel the chill. He looked up toward the spires of Oakhaven, where the Siren lived in her palace of noise.
He was a fifteen-year-old boy with the lifespan of an ancient and the eyes of a reaper.
"The world wants its debt," Nars muttered, pulling his hood over his head. "Let it come and try to collect."