**Chapter 1 — The River’s Ledger**

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I woke to the sound of water screaming.

Not voices—metal. The feeder pipe over my pallet shrieked as pressure dove, a knife-thin whistle that cut through my good ear. The bad one filled with ocean and throbbed. Boots hit concrete. A pail went over. Someone coughed up a slice of black lung and swore at the taste of last winter.

Name’s Ash Mercer. Twenty-t...