The desk. A mahogany beast. Solar hated it, yet he owned it.
It sat there like a dark, polished slab of a dead tree, reflecting the flickering blue light of the monitors. Solar didn't move. He just stared at a single, fat fly. Buzz. Thud. Buzz. The damn thing was trying to break through the glass, trying to reach the smog of Aethelgard. It didn't know that the air outside was a slow death sentence. In here? In Solar's office? The death was just... faster. And it came with a bill.
The air smelled of old paper and copper. And that faint, disgusting floral scent of lilies that had been sitting in stagnant water for too long. Solar breathed it in. It tasted like debt.
Clink. Clink.
He flipped the gold sovereign. The sound was a jagged needle in the silence. Every time the metal hit the wood, Baron Valerius jumped. Just a little. A twitch in his expensive, silk-clad shoulder. The man was a mountain of grease and failing bloodlines. He was sweating—not the clean sweat of a man who works, but the oily, yellow sweat of a man who is about to lose everything.
"The silence is expensive, Baron," Solar muttered. He didn't look up. He was watching the fly. "And you've been using quite a lot of it. My patience is a loan you can't afford to keep open."
Valerius cleared his throat. It sounded like someone dragging a shovel over gravel. "Solar... please. The northern trade routes. The frost... it killed the harvest. The silos are just dust. My workers are starving, they can't even stand at the looms."
Solar stopped the coin. Dead. He trapped it under his cold palm.
"Grain doesn't pay interest, Valerius. People do. Dead people? They're just bad assets." Solar finally looked at him. His eyes weren't human. They were two glass marbles reflecting a bankrupt soul. "Since you have no gold, I've been looking at your other... organs. Your estates. Your name."
"I have the manor! The vineyards in the valley!" The Baron's voice cracked. It sounded like dry parchment tearing. "My grandfather built that place from the mud up!"
Solar leaned forward. The movement was slow. Predatory. "Legacy? You're talking to me about legacy? Legacy is a luxury for people who don't owe me three million sovereigns. I bought the second lien on your manor three months ago, Baron. I own the chair you're sitting in. I own that silk coat that's struggling to hold your belly in. I even own the breath you just took. That air came from my filters. And trust me... the bill is coming."
He stood up and walked to the window. He didn't look at the Baron. He looked at the city—a sprawling, black wound under a synthetic sky. "I don't care about the frost. The sun doesn't stop rising because your peasants are hungry. Neither does the interest. Every second we waste, you owe me another ten credits. Can you hear it? That hum in the walls? That's your family name being liquidated. Piece by piece."
Valerius was shaking now. A real, ugly tremor. "What do you want? Another month. Just... give me thirty days. My daughters... they're supposed to go to the capital for the presentation."
Solar turned around. The smile on his face was just a jagged line in the dark. He picked up a heavy, iron-bound ledger and dropped it on the desk. THUD. It sounded like a body falling into a grave.
"The silver mines," Solar whispered. "The Grey Peaks. The mining rights, the equipment, and the lives of the men in the shafts. All of it. Now."
"That's ancestral land!" Valerius gasped. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "If I sign that... we're nobodies. We'll be peasants."
"You already are peasants," Solar said. His voice was flat. Cold. "You're just peasants with fancy titles. Sign the paper, or I'll have the bailiffs at your door before the sun goes down. Your daughters won't be going to court. They'll be going to the work-houses. Do you think the 'Free Air' in the slums will be kind to their skin, Baron? Do you think the debt-collectors will care about your grandfather when they're dragging your furniture into the street?"
He pushed a silver pen across the desk. It looked like a needle. A needle meant to drain the last drop of life. "One signature. Your life continues. Your debt is... restructured. Or you walk out that door and you watch your world burn. I'll enjoy the fire. I might even toast a marshmallow."
Valerius stared at the pen. His breath was coming in ragged hitches. He looked like a man standing on a ledge, watching the ground turn to smoke. His hand reached out. It was trembling so hard he had to grab his own wrist to steady the pen.
He signed. The ink was black. It looked like a death warrant.
Solar took the paper. He didn't blow on the ink. He just watched it dry. "Get out, Baron. And try not to breathe so much on the way out. You're wasting my oxygen."
As the Baron stumbled out, his boots thumping like a dying heart on the carpet, Solar sat back down. He picked up the gold coin. Clink. Clink. Clink.
He looked at the ledger. Profit. Another soul archived. But the hunger... it stayed. It was always there, a cold pit in his stomach that no amount of gold could fill. The city was full of barons, and the world was full of debt. And Solar? Solar was the only one who knew how to collect the taxes on existence.
He poured a glass of water. It was clear. Cold. Somewhere out there, a man was dying of thirst. Solar drank it slowly. He didn't feel a thing. He just adjusted his cufflinks, opened the next page of the ledger, and waited.