Morning did not arrive cleanly.
It seeped.
Light filtered through the border city as if the sky were uncertain it had permission to brighten. Colors lagged behind shapes. Sounds arrived a heartbeat late. Tareth woke already tense, body aching with the familiar, unrelenting discomfort of misalignment.
He had dreamed.
Not visions. Not prophecy.
Accounting.
He sat up slowly, every joint protesting, and immediately felt it—the room had shifted while he slept. The bed was closer to the wall than it had been. The window angled a fraction lower, showing more ground and less sky. Nothing dramatic. Nothing obvious.
But enough.
The world had adjusted around him again.
Tareth exhaled through his nose and stood. His balance wavered—not from weakness, but from disagreement. The floor resisted him for a moment, then relented, as if deciding that letting him fall would be more trouble than it was worth.
Downstairs, the inn was quieter than it should have been.
Conversations died when he entered. Cups paused halfway to lips. A man near the hearth frowned at his own reflection in a polished kettle, as if it had changed expression without warning.
The innkeeper watched Tareth carefully. Not fear. Calculation.
"You didn't sleep easy," she said.
"I slept," Tareth replied.
"That's not the same thing," she said, sliding him a bowl of thin porridge. "People nearby didn't."
He accepted the bowl, though he wasn't hungry. "What happened?"
She hesitated. "A woman on the south street woke up speaking a contract she never signed. A boy forgot which of his parents was alive. And three doors wouldn't open until someone apologized to them."
Tareth stilled.
"How close?" he asked.
The innkeeper tapped the counter. "Close enough that I'm charging you extra if it gets worse."
Fair.
He ate slowly, aware of eyes tracking every movement. Each swallow felt like negotiation. He could sense it—not qi, not magic, but pressure. The city was aware of him in the way a body is aware of a splinter: not immediately lethal, but impossible to ignore.
When he stepped back outside, the street bent.
Not visibly.
Perceptibly.
People moved around him with subtle care, paths curving just enough to avoid proximity. A dog barked once, then sat abruptly, confused by its own decision.
That was when the first collector arrived.
It did not announce itself.
A man stood at the far end of the street where there had been no one a breath earlier. Average height. Plain clothing. Unremarkable face that slid from memory the moment Tareth tried to fix it.
He walked forward.
The city reacted immediately. The ground stabilized beneath his steps. Sounds aligned. The air felt… corrected.
Tareth felt the contrast like cold water.
They stopped a few paces apart.
"Good morning," the man said pleasantly. "You're causing a measurable deviation."
"I'm not doing anything," Tareth replied.
The man smiled. "That's the issue."
Up close, something was wrong with him. Not monstrous. Not unnatural. Just too resolved. His outline was precise in a way living things rarely were. Even his breathing felt optimized.
"Who are you?" Tareth asked.
"A registrar," the man said. "A collector of liabilities."
The words carried weight. Not threat—classification.
"You're not a demon," Tareth said.
"No."
"Not Myrr."
"No."
"Not Kaelvar."
A pause, thin as a blade's edge. "Not anymore."
That answer unsettled Tareth more than any other.
The registrar glanced around the street. "This city has exceeded acceptable variance thresholds in the last twelve hours. Coinciding with your arrival."
"That's not my fault."
"Fault is irrelevant," the registrar said mildly. "Cost is not."
He produced a small slate, its surface blank. As he held it, faint markings began to appear—not letters, but impressions, as if reality itself were pressing against the stone.
"You are an unaligned presence," the registrar continued. "You generate systemic hesitation. That hesitation accumulates. Someone pays."
Tareth's jaw tightened. "And you're here to collect?"
"Assess," the registrar corrected. "Collection comes later."
From the corner of Tareth's vision, shadows leaned inward—not aggressively, but attentively. The city was listening.
"What happens if I leave?" Tareth asked.
The registrar tilted his head. "The cost moves with you."
"And if I stay?"
"It concentrates."
Silence stretched.
Behind the registrar, a child dropped a toy. It did not hit the ground. It hovered for a breath, then settled gently, embarrassed by the delay.
The registrar sighed. "You see the problem."
Tareth did.
Every step he took forced the world to decide whether rules were still worth enforcing. That decision carried weight. Strain. Debt.
"You're going to make me disappear," Tareth said.
The registrar shook his head. "No. That would be expensive."
"Then what?"
The registrar met his gaze fully for the first time. Something ancient flickered behind the pleasant expression—not malice, but exhaustion.
"We're going to see if you can pay."
The slate in his hand warmed. Lines deepened.
Far away—too far to pinpoint—something answered. Not the predator. Something quieter. Older. Attentive.
Tareth felt the sword at his side tick.
Once.
Not warning.
Interest.
The registrar smiled thinly. "Good," he said. "You're starting to accrue value."
Around them, the city exhaled uneasily, buildings settling, streets aligning just enough to function.
Tareth stood still, uncorrected, unaligned, and finally understood the true danger of his existence.
He was not breaking the world.
He was forcing it to keep a ledger.
And sooner or later—
Someone always comes to balance the books.