The mountain slept in short breaths. Wind came down the cut of the pass, pressed against the terraces, and moved on. The clan kept the lights low. Most of the rescued people lay in the long hall wrapped in blankets, half-awake, listening for sounds they did not yet know how to judge.
Mira sat on a bench under the eaves with a wool cloak around her shoulders. The halo of white hair was tied back with a strip of cloth. Her skin held that new cold glow. The worst of the shaking had stopped after Selina forced water into her and made her sleep. She was steady now, but only if she stayed still.
Kael stood at the edge of the terrace with his hands behind his back. He watched the path, the lower slopes, the line where broken city met new stone. He did not speak unless he needed to. He was close enough that Mira could hear him breathe.
Selina came out with hot broth and set it on the bench. "Sip first," she said. "Then talk."
Mira nodded and drank. When the bowl was empty, she said, "There is a thread in my chest. I tried to ignore it. It is stronger now. It pulls toward the city."
Kael did not turn. "Direction?"
"South-east," she said. "It is not the Red Veil. It is blood. It is my father."
Selina sat. "Can you hear him?"
"Not words," Mira said. "It is like a hand on the door. He knocks and stops and knocks again. He is not himself. There is something pushing through him."
Kael came back to them. "If he took the brand, the cult is inside him."
"He is not a whisperer," Mira said. "He is loud. He thinks money can fix everything. If he was offered power, he would say yes. But this is not a business deal. I can feel it."
Selina kept her voice level. "If that tether gets stronger, it will work in both directions. If you can feel him, he can be found through you. If we go to him now, we walk into their net."
"I am not going to him," Mira said. "I am asking what we do when he comes to us."
Kael held her gaze. "If he comes, I stop him at the perimeter. If he is only marked, we can cut the mark out. If he is a vessel, we put him down and cage him until we know how deep it is."
Mira swallowed. "If there is anything of him left, I want to try."
"Try what?" Kael asked.
"Call to him," she said. "By name. Tell him to stop. Tell him to fight it. I think he will hear me if I try hard enough."
Selina looked between them. "We prepare both plans. Rescue if there is room. Restraint if there is not."
Mira let out a breath. "All right."
Selina stood. "Then we split the hour. Kael fortifies the lower stairs. I assign pairs and place a signal lamp every fifty paces. You rest ten minutes and then you walk to the inner hall and back with me. No more."
"Fine," Mira said. "There is something else."
Kael waited.
"Harland," she said. "I hear his voice in a different way. Not through blood. Through anger. He is moving. He is going to sell what he stole."
Selina's mouth hardened. "To who?"
"I don't know," Mira said. "Not the cult. Someone who pays fast and does not ask where things come from."
Kael's jaw set. "Black-market biotech."
"Can we stop him?" Mira asked.
"Not yet," Selina said. "We do not leave the mountain until the wards are finished. If he sells vials that harm people, we handle that after we secure you."
Mira nodded. "Then I will sit and not make trouble."
"Good," Selina said.
They stood together a minute longer and listened to the dark.
—
Arthur Halden waited in a private room under a bank he partly owned and mostly feared. The room was new. The paint smelled fresh over stone that was not new at all. Men in dark suits stood at the door and did not turn their heads.
Opposite him sat a man in a red cloak. Not cloth red. That painted, sealed red the cult preferred. He had no mask. His face was ordinary. He watched Arthur with a flat, steady stare.
Arthur cleared his throat. "I want results," he said. "I have complied. I have funded your events. I have brought people to your dinner tables. My return is late."
The red-cloaked man put a small black box on the table and lifted the lid. Inside lay a shard the size of a thumbnail. It looked like glass dragged from a fire and quenched too fast. It gave off no light. It bent the light around it.
"This is the mark," the man said. "You asked for proof. This is proof."
Arthur leaned forward. "What happens when it touches skin?"
"You will feel heat," the man said. "You will hear a sound like your own name. After that, you will be seen by those who matter. Doors will open. You will not be asked to wait."
Arthur did not like the way the man spoke. It felt like being handled. He reached into his jacket and set down a pen inlaid with gold. "And what do I give?"
"Half of what you own now," the man said. "Half of what you will own later. Your public loyalty. And your private obedience when required."
Arthur forced a smile. "That sounds like a poetic way to say I will follow orders. I do not follow orders."
The man did not smile. "You have already followed one. You are here."
Arthur felt the anger rise and pushed it down. He looked at the shard again. "If I take this, how fast do I see gains?"
"You will not need pills for your heart," the man said. "You will not tire. Contracts will come. Police inquiries will die in inboxes. People who block you will step aside. You will see your numbers triple if you do not act like a fool."
Arthur nodded once. "Do it."
The man took out a pair of metal tongs and lifted the shard. He pressed it to Arthur's chest, over the sternum. The heat was instant and clean. Arthur's breath caught. He tried not to move. A smell like iron and rain filled his nose. He did not see light. He saw a sharp, thin dark that cut everything around it into cleaner lines. He heard—not a word—but an opening.
Something answered him from a long way off and very close. He was a child and a king at once. He reached for it because reaching was what he knew.
"Done," the man said. He stepped back. "Your eyes will feel strange. Your hands may shake. Do not drink for two hours. Do not sleep alone tonight."
Arthur straightened slowly. His hands shook. He did not like that. He hated it. He looked at the man and held out his hand. The man did not take it.
"We'll be in touch," the man said. "When we speak next, you will give me the doctor who stole from you. He thinks he can sell our property. He cannot."
Arthur blinked. "Harland?"
"Yes," the man said.
Arthur smiled for the first time. "Gladly."
The man stood. The guards moved aside. The door opened. Arthur sat alone and stared at his hands. The shake stopped. He pressed two fingers to the mark. He felt the call again. His mouth curved. "Fine," he said softly. "Now you move for me."
He took out his phone. He called a number no one had proof he owned.
"Find Harland," he said. "Bring him alive."
The man on the other end asked, "Where do we start?"
"His clinic. His flat. The back room at Metcalf Street. The storage site by the river. He always runs to the river."
"How hard?"
"Hard," Arthur said. "But do not shoot him in the head. I want his hands."
—
Harland sat on a low metal chair in a warehouse that pretended to be closed for inventory. He had a case handcuffed to his wrist. He watched the door. He checked his watch. He told himself to stop tapping his foot.
A woman in a long coat walked in with two men. She took off her gloves. "Doctor," she said. "You are late."
"You are early," he said. "It balances out."
She sat on a crate. "What do you have?"
"Samples and data," Harland said. He unlocked the case and turned it toward her. Inside were four slim vials in foam, three flash drives, and a bound printout. "I want double for the vials. There is demand. You know it."
She looked at the vials without touching them. "What do they do?"
"They slow failure and raise baseline stamina," he said. "Short term only. Not a cure. But a boardroom looks different after a dose. So does a bed."
"And side effects?" she said.
"Nosebleeds," he said. "Head pressure. Short episodes of weakness. Nothing lasting in small amounts."
"Source?"
"Private," he said. "The supplier is gone."
She glanced up. "Gone?"
"Dead," he said calmly. "Not by me."
She nodded once. "Price holds. Transfer now. I do not like to count cash in a room like this."
He faked a smile. "We agree on something."
The two men stood back. She took out a small reader and a phone. She scanned the code he offered. The transfer started. The case stayed on his wrist.
The door at the other end opened. Three men in plain clothes walked in. They had the wrong posture for buyers and the right posture for private security. Harland did not look at them. He kept his eyes on the woman. He knew the tone that would keep a deal alive.
"I have something else," he said. "Names. Of people who will pay again in a week."
"We are not setting up a subscription," she said. "We purchase and close."
The three men came closer. One put a hand in his jacket. Harland closed the case, stood, and lifted his free hand like a man who wants to keep a scene polite.
"Gentlemen," he said.
"Doctor," the first one said. "Come with us."
"On what authority?" Harland asked.
"Private instruction," the man said. "Mr. Halden wants a talk."
Harland smiled too wide. "I am busy."
The man stepped forward. The woman in the coat raised a hand. "He is with me," she said. "If you have a complaint, call my office. Do not walk into my room and steal my seller."
"He is not your seller," the man said. "He is our problem."
"Then fix him on your time," she said. "Not on mine."
The men looked at each other and at Harland. One of them pressed a finger to his ear. Someone spoke there. He nodded. "Not today," he said to the others. "We know where to find him."
They left. The woman waited until the door shut. Then she looked at Harland. "You bring trouble."
"It follows me," he said. "I cannot help it."
"You can," she said. "Stop thinking you are smarter than everyone in the room."
He did not answer. The transfer finished. Her phone chimed. She slid the vials, the drives, and the printout into a black bag and stood.
"We are done," she said. "If you reach out again, I will not pick up."
"Until the market begs," he said.
"Until the market buries you," she said, and left.
Harland sat again and stared at the empty case. His hands shook for a second. He stared until they stopped. He took a breath and let it out slow. He was still here. He had money. He would leave tonight. He would not go home. He would not go to the clinic. He would not go to the river. He would go to the airport with no bag and buy clothes on the other side.
His phone buzzed. A message: Unknown number. Two words. Run now.
He stood up fast. He did not ask who sent it. He ran.
—
Nora opened her eyes in a stone cell under red light. Her hands were bound at the wrists with a strip that looked like cloth and felt like wire. A woman in a red cape sat on a chair outside the bars with a tablet in her lap. She looked bored.
"Water," Nora said.
The woman got up and brought a metal cup to the bars. "Drink," she said.
Nora drank. She set the cup down and breathed. "Why am I here?"
"You know why," the woman said.
"I gave the names you asked for," Nora said. "I told you when Harland moved. I told you who went in and out of the hospital. I told you the vans and the cars and the delivery schedules. I did the part I agreed to."
"You warned the girl," the woman said. "You sent a message."
Nora looked down. "I told her to leave the door locked at night. That is not treason."
"You called it a bad time to visit," the woman said. "You stopped a man at the steps and told him to come back. You slowed us down."
"I slowed a thief," Nora said. "I am not sorry."
The woman stood. "You are sorry now. The master is coming. You will fix your error."
"How," Nora said. "Tell me how and I will do it."
"You will go back to the city," the woman said. "You will stand in front of the father and tell him where to walk. You will lead him to the mountain path. You will tell him to keep his eyes on the light when he sees it."
Nora stared at the floor. "That will kill him."
"That will raise him," the woman said. "You talk too much like a mother."
Nora kept her mouth shut.
The woman took the wire strip from Nora's wrists and replaced it with a thin red thread. It bit into the skin and then sank out of sight. Nora hissed.
"What was that," she said.
"A leash," the woman said. "If you run the other way, you stop. If you lie, you choke. If you lead us wrong, you fall down and do not get up again."
Nora breathed through her nose. "All right."
The woman opened the cell. "Go."
Nora walked out. At the end of the hall stood two men in capes, one tall, one very tall. They looked at her like she was a file.
"Do not talk to me like a dog," she said. "Give me the time and the street and get out of my way."
The tall one smiled slightly. "Street in one hour. You know the way."
Nora nodded once. "I do."
She walked up the stairs without help. She hated them. She hated herself. She would do it anyway. She would try to bend it at the last minute, but she knew the leash would pull if she bent too far. She needed a better way to break it. She did not have one yet.
—
Mira lay down and closed her eyes. She listened for the thread that ran out to her father. It throbbed with a slow, firm beat. It had a second beat under it now. That second beat was colder. It did not match the first. She followed the first and tried to ignore the second.
Kael came to the doorway. "Five minutes," he said.
"I know," she said.
He did not speak again. When five minutes passed, he touched the door frame with two fingers. "Up," he said.
She sat, stood, took his arm, and walked with him to the inner hall. Selina waited at the other end with a chair and a cup of water. They did it twice. On the third walk, Mira stopped. She pressed her palm to the wall.
"What is it," Selina asked.
"Listen," Mira said.
They were quiet. At first there was only the wind and the creak of wood. Then the stone under their hands gave a slow, heavy sound.
Kael looked up. "That is the lower wards."
"Is something wrong," Selina asked.
"They are still shallow," Kael said. "The mountain city is not fully awake. If the Red Veil pushes a wave, we will hold, but it will hurt."
"How long until the seal finishes opening," Selina asked.
"Two days," Kael said. "Maybe less."
Mira set her forehead against the stone. "When the seal opens, my name will not go back to sleep," she said. "He will feel it. He will come."
Selina put a hand at Mira's back. "When he comes, he sees us first."
Mira nodded. "Please do not kill him unless you have to."
Kael spoke without hesitation. "I will not if I do not have to."
She exhaled once, long, and pressed on.
—
Arthur sat in the back of a black car and stared at his reflection in the window. His pupils looked wrong. He could not say how. He flexed his fingers. They felt tight under the skin.
Nora opened the front passenger door and slid in. "Left on Half Moon," she said. "Then up the ramp and through the underpass. They moved the barricades yesterday."
Arthur looked at her in the rearview mirror. "You look like someone who did not sleep."
"Neither did you," she said.
"Do not tell me how I look," he said.
"Then do not ask questions you already know the answer to," she said.
He held her eyes in the mirror for a long second and then looked away. "The mountain," he said. "You know it."
"Yes," she said.
"You will get me there," he said.
"Yes," she said. The red thread at her wrist warmed. "I will."
He watched the line of her neck. "You are sweating."
"I ran here," she said. "You gave me ten minutes."
He looked out the window. The city outside the car had begun to wear its new shape. A new ridge cut the park in half. A pool under a shopping center had turned to dark glass. Small animals watched from the edges of everything.
"Do you believe this will save me," he asked.
Nora answered without pause. "No. I think it will change you and call it saving. You asked for it. You will get it."
"You talk like you hate me," he said.
"I do not hate you," she said. "I hate what you bought."
He said nothing for a while. When he spoke again, his voice was smaller. "Do you think she hates me."
"Your daughter," Nora said. "I do not know."
"She would if she was smart," he said, and looked out the window again.
—
Harland ran until his legs burned. He cut through a line of market stalls, ducked a swing of canvas, and came out onto the side street beside the river. He stopped. He almost laughed. He had run to the river out of habit. He cursed himself and turned.
A man stepped out from behind a van and lifted a phone. Harland recognized him. He was Arthur's second and liked to break fingers. Harland smiled like a man who has made peace with pain. "All right," he said. "I will come."
The second smiled back. "Good."
A dark shape hit the man's hand. The phone clattered to the ground. The second swore. Another shape struck his knee. He went down on one leg. Harland stared. He could not see the thrower.
A voice spoke from the far end of the alley. "Police," it said. "Hands where I can see."
The second swore again and reached for his jacket. Harland ran. He did not look back. He heard two more thuds and a shout, then sirens. He crossed the next street, cut through a warehouse, and climbed a rusted staircase to the roof. He crouched behind a vent, closed his eyes, and waited for his heart to calm. When he opened them, the sky above the city was the wrong color. A dirty white ring had begun to form. He did not know what that meant. He did know he needed to be on a plane in one hour.
He stood, went down the other side of the building, and headed for the station.
—
Night took the mountain early. The clan lit lamps along the stair and left the way to the lower gate dark. Kael walked the line with two of the older fighters. They placed jars of oil and short iron stakes at the curve where the path narrowed.
Selina stood with Mira on the terrace above the inner gate. "You should sleep now," she said.
"I will lie down," Mira said. "I do not think I will sleep."
"Then lie down and let your body pretend," Selina said. "Sometimes that is enough."
Mira looked at her. "If I ask you a hard question, will you answer it."
"Yes," Selina said.
"When you gave me that tea," Mira said, "you did not tell me what it was. You said it was mild. It was not mild."
Selina did not break eye contact. "It was not mild," she said. "We needed to move you fast. I should have told you and argued until you said yes."
"You thought I would say no," Mira said.
"I thought you would say yes," Selina said. "I still should have asked."
Mira nodded. "Do not do that again."
"I will not," Selina said.
Mira looked down at her hands. "I am angry."
"I know," Selina said. "You can be angry and still stand with us."
"I am," Mira said.
They stayed side by side without talking for a while. Then Mira said, "When this is over, I want to know your names. Not the ones you use here. The ones you used when the city was whole."
Selina's shoulders loosened a fraction. "I will tell you," she said. "When the seal opens. When we stand inside the hall with the old banners. I will say my name, and Kael will say his, and you will say yours, and we will not whisper any part of it."
"Good," Mira said.
Selina touched her sleeve. "Lie down now."
Mira went inside.
—
Arthur's car reached the base of the old service road. A wall of rock blocked the turn. He got out and stared up. He did not see a road. He saw a faint, pale band high above, like frost. His mark throbbed in time with it.
Nora stood at the front of the car. "Up there," she said.
"How," Arthur said.
"On foot," she said. "Follow the markers. Do not step off the path. Do not look down when the light changes. Do not touch the wire if you see it."
Arthur looked at her. "Come with me."
"I have to show the next car the route," she said.
He believed her. He started up the path. Two of his men followed with headlamps on their foreheads and small black bags on their backs. The lamps showed stone and the white paint of a line that had not been there last week. The bags carried rope and cutting tools and injections that kept men moving when they should have stopped.
Nora watched them go until they turned the bend. Then she got back in the car. She pressed her wrist against the seat and hissed when the thread bit. She gripped the wheel and breathed. "One more turn," she said to herself. "Then you get out."
The next car pulled up. Two red-cloaked men got out. One of them was the tall one from the cell hall. He looked at the path and smiled. He reached up and pressed his own chest with two fingers. "She is close," he said.
Nora kept her voice flat. "Keep the line tight. If you spread, you will trigger the wire."
He glanced at her wrist. "Do not try to be clever."
"Do not try to be stupid," she said, and got back in the car.
She drove down the bend and parked behind a boulder. She put her head on the steering wheel. She shook for a long minute. Then she wiped her face, got out, and started up the narrow animal track that ran along the other side of the ridge. There was no thread pulling her that way. She could move. She would try to get ahead of them. She would try to warn them in time. If she failed, she would not have to live with it long.
—
Kael felt the first push from below just after midnight. It came like an invisible hand on the lower gate. Not a hit. A test. He lifted his left hand. Two men on the ridge above him lit the first lamp and then turned it low again.
Selina came to the inner gate and stood with three women from the clan who had held lines like this in other years. They had short blades and strong legs. They had seen death. They did not talk about it.
Mira lay on a pallet in the inner hall with her eyes open. She felt the push too. It turned the air under her breastbone. She pressed her hand there. "Do not answer," she said under her breath. "Not yet."
The second push was stronger. Men moved on the path. They did not run. They knew the path would punish them if they did. They climbed with their heads down and their mouths open for air. Arthur climbed with his mouth shut. He did not look down.
The third push came with a sound like wind. It was not wind. It was the hum of a field laid over stone and then fed. The wards groaned. Kael lifted his hand again. Two more lamps went up the line.
"Hold," he said.
On the switchback above the gate, Nora stepped out of the dark and grabbed Kael's sleeve. He had a knife in his hand before she finished the move. She lifted both hands high. "It is me," she said. "Do not stab me."
"You are not supposed to be here," he said.
"They are behind me," she said. "Your left wire is loose at the second peg. If they cut there, they get through in one try."
Selina reached them. She looked at Nora's wrist. "You are tagged."
"I know," Nora said. "I came anyway. If you push me off the path, the tag does not work."
"I am not pushing you off the path," Selina said. "Stand still."
Nora swallowed. "Your girl. Is she awake."
"Enough," Selina said.
"Tell her not to call to him," Nora said. "He is not alone in his head now. If she calls, she pulls the other thing faster. Make her stay quiet."
Selina nodded once. "Noted."
Nora looked at the lamps and the line of men on the ridge. "You prepared fast," she said.
"We were always going to fight here," Kael said.
Nora looked down at her hands. "I am sorry."
Selina stepped closer. "Do you want to live through tonight."
"Yes," Nora said.
"Can you follow orders without trying to save three people at once," Selina said.
"Maybe," Nora said. "Try me."
"Then take the right flank," Selina said. "Stand behind the third stack. When the first three come over the wire, you hit the second one in the knee. You do not chase. You drop back. You do not get heroic."
Nora's mouth twitched. "All right."
Kael's head turned. "Positions," he said.
—
They hit the lower gate at one twenty. The first line carried cutters on long poles. They swung once, twice, three times. The wire sang and snapped. Oil jars broke and flared. The first two men fell back. The third pushed through. He tripped the second line and hit the stone with the breath gone from him. He rolled and tried to stand. A short blade took his ankle from the side. He cried out and dropped again. He did not get up.
Arthur watched from the bend. He did not rush. He moved when a gap opened and only then. He did not look at the man who had fallen. The mark in his chest heated and cooled. He walked toward the next cut in the path.
Kael met the first four on the narrow stair. His blade was steady and short. He did not show off. He took hands when they reached for the wire and knees when they leaned in. He knocked one man back into his own line and moved on. The men behind him finished what he started.
Selina held the inner bend with two fighters. When the first man came at her shoulder-high with a short hook, she blocked, trapped his wrist, and pulled him forward into stone. He slid down. The second fumbled. She kicked the hook away, dropped her weight, and struck his throat with the heel of her hand. He stopped moving.
Nora hit the knee she was told to hit and then dropped back. She wanted to go for the next. She made herself stop. She moved behind the third stack and waited for the next gap.
Arthur reached the second gate and paused. He pressed two fingers to his chest. The mark burned. He looked up the stair and saw light where there should have been none. He took a breath and climbed.
Kael met him at the bend. They looked at each other. Arthur's eyes were wrong. There was a ring in them that did not belong. They were clear and cold. He smiled. "You," he said.
Kael did not smile. "Turn around," he said.
"I will not," Arthur said. "She is up there."
"You do not know what is up there," Kael said. "Turn around."
Arthur stepped forward. The men behind him moved. Kael lifted his hand once. The two fighters at his back pulled a wire handle. A net slid down and lifted, and three men went with it, pinned and swearing. Arthur did not step into the net. He stepped back and to the side. He watched Kael's feet. He had paid men to teach him to fight in a gym where no one hit him hard. He moved like a man who had not been hit hard.
Kael blocked his first strike, the second, and the third. He did not strike back. "Turn around," he said again.
Arthur dropped his hand. His smile widened. "You cannot stop me and her at the same time," he said. "You have to pick."
"I did," Kael said. He stepped in, took Arthur's wrist, turned it hard, and set him on his knees with his arm locked. He could have broken it. He did not. He took a loop of wire from his belt and tied Arthur's hands. The men behind Arthur tried to rush. A jar fell between them and the fire climbed the oil on the stones. They stopped.
"Walk back down," Kael said.
Arthur laughed. "You cannot keep me."
"I can keep you long enough," Kael said.
Arthur looked up and over Kael's shoulder. He was not looking at the gate. He was looking further. He was not looking with his eyes. The mark under his skin pulsed. He was counting. He stood when Kael pulled him up. He did not fight the pull. He started down. He kept counting.
—
Mira sat on the pallet and listened to the thread. It vibrated like a wire under too much weight. It hurt. She pressed her hand to her chest. She wanted to call his name and tell him to stop. Selina's words sat in her ear. Do not call. If you call, the other thing hears you too.
Selina came in with a bowl of water and a cloth. "He is at the lower bend," she said.
"I can feel it," Mira said.
Selina wrung the cloth. "He is alive. That means Kael did not break him to make it easy. It also means he is still dangerous. Do not stand up."
"I do not like waiting," Mira said.
"I know," Selina said. "Wait anyway."
Mira gripped the edge of the pallet. "If this kills him, I want to see it."
"It will not kill him," Selina said. "If it does, you will see it. I will tell you the truth."
Mira nodded once. "Thank you."
They sat in silence until the next shout came from below.
—
Arthur reached the first landing with his hands bound. He stopped. He let himself fall to his left. He took the line with him. The man on his left fell. The loop loosened. Arthur rolled and came up with a small knife he had hidden in his sleeve. He cut the wire at his wrists and threw the knife at the face of the man who had tried to keep him upright. The man dropped. Arthur ran up the side channel where the rock cut a narrow path.
Kael swore once and followed. The cut was too narrow for two men with blades. He did not try to pass. He went after Arthur with his hands free and his shoulder forward.
Arthur reached the inner bend and hit the wire. It sang. It cut his hands and chest. He laughed and kept going. He did not bleed like he should have. The mark burned and sealed. He grabbed the top of the fence and pulled. The wire smoked. It held. He let go and turned toward the low wall on the left. He climbed.
Nora saw him and moved. She hit him from the side in the ribs with the full weight of her small body. He went into the wall and his breath left him. He fell. She went with him. They hit the stone hard. He rolled and came up on his knees. She came up slower.
He looked at her. "You," he said.
She said nothing. She dragged herself back behind the stack like Selina told her to do.
Kael reached them and kicked Arthur's feet out from under him. He went down. This time Kael did not bother with wire. He took a short length of chain from his belt and snapped it around Arthur's wrists. He pulled it tight. It locked. It would need a key.
Arthur lay there for a second and then started laughing again. "You think this matters," he said. "He is already on his way."
"Who," Kael said.
Arthur smiled wider. "The one you keep talking about as if he is a rumor. The one in the red room under the bank. The one who does not use his hands when he speaks."
Kael's face did not change. "Get up," he said.
Arthur stood. Kael took his arm and walked him down. Nora lay back and held her side. She wiped her face and swallowed. She tried not to cry. Selina crouched and felt along her ribs with quick, firm fingers.
"Two cracked," Selina said. "Stay here. If you stand, you drop."
"I can move," Nora said.
"You can move after the next lamp goes out," Selina said. "Not before."
"I hate you," Nora said. It came out like a gasp.
"I know," Selina said. "Good. Use it."
—
They put Arthur in the lower cell with his hands bound and two men on the door. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He did not look like a man who had lost. He looked like a man who had checked a box.
Kael stood outside the bars. "If you speak, make it worth air," he said.
Arthur opened one eye. "You talk like a guard."
"I am," Kael said.
Arthur shut his eye. "You cannot keep the door closed forever," he said.
Kael did not answer. He went back up the stairs.
—
The push from below stopped. The men in red fell back and reset. Selina called the pairs and rotated the line. Nora slept sitting up with her back to the stack and her hands under her armpits. She snored once and woke herself and swore under her breath.
Mira stood in the inner hall. She had disobeyed and moved, but only as far as the door. She took one more step. Selina saw her and shook her head once. Mira stopped. She stayed in the doorway and looked at Kael.
"Alive," Kael said.
"I know," Mira said.
"He will try again," Kael said.
"I know," she said. "How much time."
"A few hours," he said. "They will wait for the sky to change again."
"The ring," she said. "I saw it."
"I saw it too," he said. "It will finish soon."
Mira kept her voice steady. "When it finishes, what happens to me."
"You get stronger," Kael said. "So does everything that wants you."
She nodded. "Then we hurry."
She went back to the pallet and lay down. She closed her eyes and put her hand over the mark she did not have. She spoke inside her head to the thread. Not a call. Not even a whisper. Just a simple push: Stop. She felt resistance. She pushed again. Stop. It did not stop. She let go.
—
In the city, Harland rode the train to the airport and watched his reflection in the window. He thought about the case, the money, the woman in the coat, the men who had almost taken him, and the message that had told him to run now. He did not know who had sent it. He did not care. He would never see this place again. He would start in a city where men did not know his name and did not ask why his hands shook sometimes when he counted cash.
His phone buzzed. New message. Unknown number. Two words. Too late.
He put the phone face down on his knee and did not move until the train stopped at the next station. Then he stood and walked out. He went to the taxi line and got in a car.
"Airport," he said.
The driver looked at him in the mirror. "Closed," he said. "Flights grounded."
"Since when," Harland said.
"Since the ring," the driver said. He pointed at the sky.
Harland looked up. The ring had grown. It was not white now. It was bone-pale and bright. He did not understand what it was. He did understand that his plan had died again. He sat in the seat and closed his eyes. He counted his options and did not like any of them.
"Drive to the coast," he said.
"Which way," the driver said.
"East," Harland said. "I will tell you when to stop."
—
Arthur lay on the cell floor and watched the light under the door. It changed as a cloud moved over it and then cleared. He closed his eyes and listened. The mark in his chest pulsed. It spoke to him without words. It told him to get up. He could not. It told him to wait. He could. It told him to count. He did.
At the count of four hundred, the light under the door went darker. A step sounded outside. He turned his head. A voice spoke from the hall.
"Mr. Halden," it said. "Time to go."
Arthur smiled. "Open it," he said.
"I cannot," the voice said. "But I can break the man who holds the key and make him open it himself."
Arthur laughed once, soft. "Do it."
—
On the terrace, Mira sat up fast. The thread in her chest yanked. She put her hand there and held still. "They have a way in," she said.
Kael came out of the shadows. "Where."
"Lower cell," she said.
He moved before she finished the last word. Selina was already on the stair. Nora woke with a grunt and pushed herself upright and started after them with her hand on her side.
Mira stood. She should not have. She stood anyway. She went to the edge of the terrace and looked at the sky she could not see. She felt the light change. The ring thickened. The mountains under the city hummed. The old doors started to open.
She whispered one word she had not dared to speak in daylight. It was not loud. It did not carry down the stairs. It did not call to the mark. It called to the seal.
"Open," she said.
Far below, stone shifted. Far above, air shook. In the cell, a guard screamed. In the hall, someone's blade struck the bars. In the cut of the pass, a low horn sounded twice. Every lamp on the mountain flared and then steadied.
Kael's voice came up the stair, hard and flat. "Hold the line."
Selina's voice came after, clear and close. "Mira, stay where you are."
Mira did not move. She wrapped the cloak tighter. She stared at the dark and took slow breaths. The thread in her chest burned. She did not answer it. She held.
She said in a voice only she could hear, "I will not kill you if I can help it. But I will not let you touch me."
The mark under Arthur's skin flared with something that was not his thought. He stood in the half-open cell and smiled at the men who had opened it with their own hands. He started up the stairs. He did not run. He walked with his eyes on the light that had no source.
Kael waited at the next bend with a staff across his body and the chain key in his fist. He did not look tired. He did not look fresh. He looked ready.
Arthur stopped in front of him. "Move," he said.
"No," Kael said.
"Do you think she will thank you if you break me," Arthur said.
"I am not here for thanks," Kael said.
"What are you here for," Arthur said.
"To keep you out," Kael said.
Arthur smiled again. "Then try."
Kael did.
—
The clash on the stair was short and ugly. It was not a duel. It was two men trying to keep other people from reaching other people. Arthur hit hard. Kael hit harder. Arthur's mark knit what should have opened. Kael's stance did not let him past. It ground on. It would not last long. It did not need to.
Selina stood at the inner gate with two fighters and watched the thread lines on the ground that showed where the wards were thin. She made small adjustments with her hands. The lines shifted. They brightened. The ground under her feet stopped humming and then hummed again in a cleaner tone.
Nora leaned on the stack and watched the curve below. When a man in red tried to come up the side using a handhold she had not seen before, she grabbed his wrist and twisted until it cracked. He fell without a sound. She shut her eyes for a second and opened them again.
Mira listened to the sky and the stone and the blood and the door and tried to keep them all straight. She could not. She did the one thing she could do. She kept breathing. She did not touch the thread. She did not call the name.
The ring in the sky thickened again. Wind came down the pass and stayed. The first faint lines of the old city under the mountain started to show through the air like ink under water. The day that would make a new world had come closer. The fight on the stair was only the first price.
Mira said one more thing, to herself and to whatever listened inside the stone. "Hold."
The mountain held. For the moment, it was enough.