The first time Kye heard the name "Market of Forgotten Wagers," it came from a woman who wore too many bracelets and spoke in half-melodies. She didn't look dangerous. But she smiled like someone who'd already lost everything and didn't mind betting the rest.
"You want answers," she told him, tracing a sigil in spilled tea on the café table. "You're already playing. The question is, do you know what you've wagered?"
Kye stared down at his hands.
They still glowed faintly when he was nervous—residue from the Chronicle flash that happened after he spoke the vow. His fingertips burned when he lied. He hadn't told anyone that yet.
"I didn't wager anything," he said.
She laughed.
"Oh, child. That's the only kind of wager the Market accepts."
She stood, dropped a folded slip into his coat, and vanished into the crowd.
He waited five minutes before opening it.
There was a map drawn in red ink and a phrase he instantly recognized:
> "No system shall define what a soul owes."
Article VI.
He whispered it.
And the map lit up.
Not with light, but with memory.
Visions folded over each corner of the parchment: a crying father giving up the memory of his daughter's laugh for a ticket; a woman trading her faith for five more years of someone else's time. Each point on the map pulsed with unresolved wagers—unfinished truths, broken vows, fragmented belief.
The Market was real.
And it wasn't a place.
It was everywhere forgotten truth went to wait.
That night, Kye followed the map through back alleys and rain-glazed rooftops until he reached a subway entrance that no longer accepted credits.
Instead, the gate scanned his thoughts.
> Thought Detected: "I remember someone else's fear."
Value Accepted. Entry Granted.
The escalator hummed to life. Kye stepped down into shadow.
At the base, the world opened.
He stood in a station where the walls were made of old ledger pages, the floor tiled in vow fragments, and every passerby shimmered with the echo of something they'd given away.
No one looked whole.
They weren't supposed to.
A man brushed past him, holding a memory in a bottle. It pulsed red.
Kye stopped him. "What is that?"
The man looked startled. "My sister's forgiveness. I traded it for freedom. Thought I could buy it back. Found out someone else already placed a bid."
Kye turned away.
The Market hummed like grief set to a heartbeat.
He wandered deeper.
Stalls offered impossible things:
The ability to forget one face, forever.
A memory of kindness so strong it could buy absolution.
A name you gave up, once, whispered back—at cost.
And at the center, a stage.
A woman stood beneath a ring of faded Chronicle flames.
She held a microphone. Not tech—symbol.
Her voice was clear.
"If you've come to buy mercy, leave now. If you've come to give it, speak."
Kye stepped forward.
The crowd stilled.
He took the mic.
And he spoke the words that had been haunting his dreams:
"I carry the Chronicle, not to be remembered—but to remind you what we forgot."
The Market flared.
Vendors dropped to their knees. One began to scream.
A wall tore open behind the stage.
And inside, on a throne made of broken vows, sat a child no older than ten.
Eyes gold. Hair white. Voice ancient.
"You speak for the vault?" they asked.
Kye hesitated.
Then nodded.
"I am what the vault became."
The child smiled.
And said, "Then let's see if you're worth remembering."