After Killmark vanished, the city didn't quiet—it recalibrated.
Whispers no longer circled Sykaion like prey. They orbited like gravity. The risk-shop wasn't a rumor anymore. It was an axis.
And people began to bring more than stories.
They brought vows.
The first came from a girl no older than twelve. She laid down a broken shard of her late father's watch and said, "I won't steal again, if you let me remember him without shame."
The System read it. Evaluated. Hesitated.
Then approved the trade.
A boy offered to teach two strangers to read if Sykaion would hold a secret that was killing him. A grandmother vowed to stop hoarding ration chips in exchange for permission to cry over her daughter's grave.
And with each trade, the ledger didn't just grow.
It glowed.
A faint warmth now radiated from the corner of the shop, where the vault once stored only debt markers. Now it held promises, etched into tokens—small metal feathers inscribed with vow phrases. Each one tied to a name. Each one alive in the System.
Zeraphine stood at the threshold, watching the latest trade resolve.
She whispered, almost to herself, "You're changing the transactional standard."
Sykaion didn't look up.
"Belief was never about proof. It's about what we're willing to give with nothing guaranteed."
Arlyss leaned against the wall. "People are going to try to twist this. Sell their vows. Turn them into leverage."
"They already are," Zeraphine said. "There's talk of a new ledger on the black web—one that buys favors in the name of belief."
Sykaion stood. Walked to the vault.
He opened it. Removed a feather.
This one glowed faint blue.
"I can't stop what belief becomes. But I can choose what I write into it."
He pressed the feather against the wall.
It sank in.
A fifth Article etched itself into the stone:
> Vows given freely weigh more than laws enforced blindly.
The System's interface shimmered.
A new protocol activated:
> VOW CURRENCY ENABLED (LOCAL SCOPE)
VERIFIED VALUE: NON-MONETARY
Zeraphine stepped forward.
"You're doing what the Concordium never could."
He looked at her.
"And what's that?"
She hesitated.
"Creating a value system rooted in mercy, not power."
Arlyss scoffed. "That'll get him killed twice as fast."
Zeraphine didn't smile.
But she looked at Sykaion with something gentler than pity. Something almost afraid.
Because she knew where mercy usually ended.
And it wasn't with survival.
That night, dozens of new feathers glowed in the vault.
But only one burned.
The one Sykaion had never traded.
The one etched with his own vow:
> I will not survive at the expense of another's hope.