Turn 7 of 13

Tell Ordwin about who R. might have been in your past life

The words come slowly, each one dragged from a memory that feels more like archaeology than recollection. You lean against a moss-slick boulder, your twisted ankle throbbing, and let the bent spoon hang from your fingers like a conductor's baton gone wrong.

"Rachel Vance," you say, and the name tastes of stale coffee and fluorescent lights, of performance reviews and the particular silence of an office after hours. "My supervisor at a logistics firm. I handled import documentation; she handled whether I kept my job." The mushrooms pulse faintly, casting Ordwin's face in alternating shadow and sick green, and you watch his expression sharpen with professional interest.

"She was meticulous," you continue, the Spite stat warming behind your sternum like a coal stirred to new life. "Every error I made, documented. Every deadline I missed, memorialized in spreadsheet form. When the company downsized, she volunteered to deliver my termination personally. Stayed forty-five minutes past close to make sure I understood exactly how I'd disappointed everyone who'd ever believed in me."

Ordwin shifts his weight, leather creaking, but says nothing. The path into the Third Warren breathes cold air from its depths, and somewhere below, something shifts in darkness that has never known light.

"The Divine Allocation Office," you say, catching his eye. "She would have driven there. Would have brought a checklist. Would have spent the full hour they allow for reference consultation to ensure every digit of my suffering was properly notarized." The laugh that escapes you surprises us both—genuine, bitter, almost fond.

"The Spite stat? That's not random, Ordwin. That's her idea of poetry."

"She's here," he says quietly, not asking.

"She's watching," you correct, and push off from the boulder to stand on your ruined ankle. "Or she arranged for something to watch for her. The goblin knew her initial. The marker bears her signature in a language she shouldn't have known."

You meet his eyes, and for the first time since waking in this field of red numbers, you feel something other than Spite's driving heat. You feel recognition. Two people hunted by the same meticulous ghost.

"So we go in," you say. "And we see what she built to kill me."

Ordwin nods once, sharp, and unslings his bow with the economy of motion that speaks to years of need.

"Then we walk together. And if she shows herself—"

"She won't," you say, starting forward into the dark. "She never did. That's the thing about Rachel. She always made sure you knew exactly who'd destroyed you, but she never stayed for the aftermath. Too messy. Too human."

The Spite stat pulses in rhythm with your steps, and for the first time, you wonder if it might be something else entirely. Not hatred, directed outward. Not even anger. Something older. The will to prove someone wrong who spent years making certainty of your inadequacy.

Behind you, Ordwin follows. Ahead, the Third Warren waits.