There is a price. The blade keeps accounts in currency no coin can match. It does not demand blood for blood, but it collects echoes: favors never called in, promises made too easily, a child's laugh that stopped too soon. These return as voices in the night, or as a sudden weight on the soul when dawn’s first light touches the sword. Some bear it like penance and become saints; others like a crown and become tyrants. The sword does not judge how its tally is spent; it only remembers.