Red fire reached Jiang before the white lance reached Cairnspire.
The bronze eye beside his face snapped toward the bridge. Irra's drawline jumped in the wound, and the clean-shell wedge kicked against Jiang's good foot.
One of the buried barbs turned.
Morrowfin's flesh tightened above it.
"Do not pull me yet," Jiang called.
Aylin's line went taut anyway, not enough to drag him out, only enough to tell him where she was.
"The weapon is moving," she said.
"Inward. If I leave now, it tears her."
Aylin wanted him out; the line made that plain. What she did not do was turn fear into a command and drag him through Morrowfin's wound.
Across the feeder gate, Vessa Rane watched red light climb the rune mast and spill over the lowest bridge. She struck her hammer against the nearest tooth in a falling rhythm.
Cairnspire moved before she finished.
