The first relay mark held long enough to become a target.
Lilith stood at the edge of the folded pocket and felt the feed running through it like a second pulse under the world. The structure was not a fortress. It was a throat. Authority gathered in a narrow column of pale machinery and script-bound stone, then pushed outward in a steady stream toward the distant enclave. No full wall of law. No chamber of chains. Just a working vein of the harvest, guarded hard enough to kill anyone careless.
"That is the one," Lilith said. Her voice was quiet and certain. "If we break the core joint, the feed dies. If we only damage the outer shell, it will re-route."
