They walked until the Wilds stopped looking like anything that had ever been a forest.
Trees thinned into twisted stumps, then into black, glassy spikes jutting from the ground at odd angles, as if the earth had grown a field of broken spears. The river they'd seen from the ridge was closer now—a wide, sluggish band of gray glass, surface warped, as if it had melted and then half-frozen while still moving.
The King's chains over this place were thin and stretched, like a net pulled too far over too big a hole.
Kairn's head hurt less here.
That was its own warning.
"This is worse than the city," Sia muttered, picking her way around a glass outcropping.
"In a different way," Fen said. "The city wants to eat you with things. This wants to eat you with not-things."
Lysa's eyes tracked the warped horizon.
"It's quiet," she said.
Kairn snorted.
"It's never quiet," he said. "You just don't know what the noise is yet."
He could still hear the King's song out here, but it was faint. More like a murmur on the edge of hearing than a constant pressure. His **Web Map** showed wide gaps where no Court lines ran at all, and others where they bent sharply around unseen points.
The Null Bowl had been a hole in the web.
This was a tear.
They skirted the glass river until they found a narrower spot where chunks of fused stone formed a crooked bridge. It still felt wrong underfoot—like standing on cooled lava that wanted to remember being liquid—but it held.
On the far side, the land dipped.
Low fog clung there, not rot, not ash—something else. It curled around their ankles when they descended, cold and dry, leaving no dampness on clothes or skin.
Kairn didn't like it.
The dragon in his chest was… curious.
The Null rings were… comfortable.
"You're making a horrible face," Lysa said quietly, falling in beside him.
"Learning what my insides like," he said. "It's not reassuring."
She huffed a laugh.
"I'll let you know when it shows outside," she said.
They reached the basin floor.
Here, the ground was smoother, almost polished, dark stone veined with faint, pale lines that pulsed like breathing. No plants grew. No rot clung. No bones lay half-buried.
Emptiness.
The King's web, in Kairn's inner sight, skirted the entire depression, threads bending sharply to avoid crossing it. Some tried and simply… stopped.
"Here?" Fen asked.
"Here," Kairn said.
He didn't need System text to tell him.
He felt it.
A place the King's hands avoided.
"Why?" Sia whispered. "What is it?"
The bone-walker slid down a spike, landing lightly.
"Old swallow," it said. "Something took a bite of the world. Left teeth marks. Did not finish. This is where the bite started."
"Friendly," Fen said. "Very inviting."
Kairn stepped further in.
The air cooled.
Sound softened, like snow had fallen in an instant, muffling everything.
The dragon in him coiled tighter.
The Null hummed.
The King's song… lost words.
Not gone.
Blurred.
For the first time since Hollow Market, Kairn felt like he was standing somewhere the Court could not look at cleanly, even if it tried.
He let his shoulders drop, just a fraction.
Lysa noticed.
"That good?" she asked.
"For us," he said. "For now."
He tested **Web Map**.
The web in his head flickered.
Here, the Court's chains fuzzed around the basin, unable to pierce it. His own Brand-line, the dragon's fire, the Null scar—those all lit sharp.
Nothing else in the basin glowed.
That did not mean it was empty.
He turned slowly, scanning with ash eye and the prickle along his skin that meant old magic was watching.
"Anyone else feel like we just walked into the mouth of something that hasn't decided if it wants to chew?" Fen said under his breath.
"Yes," Kairn said.
"Lovely," Fen said. "We're all on the same nightmare."
"Rest first," Lysa said. "Existential crisis later."
They picked a raised patch of stone near the basin's center—a low hump, maybe the top of some buried structure. It felt no better than anywhere else.
It also didn't feel worse.
"That's as good as we're going to get," Fen said.
Kairn agreed.
He sat.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, he sat without having to brace for someone to fall on him with chains or rot.
His body took the chance to complain.
Everything hurt.
He could feel every cut, every bruise, every notch taken out of his scales.
The **System**, blessedly, stayed quiet. No new skills. No windows. Just the slow scroll of small regen ticks, his blood gauge creeping up one point at a time.
Lysa lowered herself beside him, legs stretched out, boots toes pointing at the dark stone.
Her head tipped back, eyes closing.
"Don't sleep yet," he muttered.
"I'm not," she said. "I'm… lying to my body."
"Good," he said. "Keep doing that."
The kids sat close together, backs to each other, eyes wide and red-rimmed, but not crying anymore. They had run out of tears somewhere back by the ribs.
The bone-walker prowled the basin's edge, sniffing the stone, occasionally tapping it with a claw, frowning with its whole strange face.
"This place does not like me," it said.
"That makes two of us," Fen said.
Kairn let his senses drift, carefully.
He felt the **dragon grave** far behind them as a warm knot, the **Null Bowl** as a cold hole, the shredded city as a frayed, humming wound.
He felt, further away, Maereth's presence at a relay, the Night Lord's song still cracked, still scorched, but steady enough.
He felt the King.
Not as a voice.
As an absence elsewhere in the web when it passed over this basin.
He avoided looking here.
Interesting, the dragon murmured. He cannot own everything.
"Can he reach us?" Lysa asked, eyes still closed, voice low.
"Not like before," Kairn said. "He can throw things at the edge. He can guess. But right here…" He flexed his hands. "We're fuzzier to him than he is to us."
Fen let out a long breath.
"So," he said. "This is what not being prey feels like."
"Temporary," Kairn said.
"Everything is," Fen said. "I'll take it."
Silence settled.
Not the dead, waiting silence of rot.
A different one.
Kairn was about to let his eyes close—just for a moment—when the stone under him thrummed.
Not dragon.
Not Court.
Not Null.
Something old.
His ash eye snapped open.
Thin lines of pale light ran along the cracks in the stone mound, forming a faint circle around where they sat.
Lysa stiffened.
"Tell me you did that," she said.
"I didn't," he said.
Fen was already on his feet, knife out.
The kids scrambled closer together.
The bone-walker hurried back toward them, for once not trying to look thrilled.
The light brightened by a fraction.
Then a voice spoke.
Not in his head.
Not in the air.
In the stone.
Layered.
Old.
"You should not be here," it said.
Kairn's hand went to his chest on instinct, as if checking which powers were currently renting space.
"Get in line," he said.
Lysa elbowed him.
"Don't sass the ancient mystery yet," she hissed.
She raised her voice.
"We didn't come to steal," she said. "We came to get away from chains."
The light pulsed.
"Chains," the voice repeated, tasting the word. "Yes. I smell them. Old. New. Broken. Chewed."
"You are very chewed," it added, and Kairn couldn't tell if it meant that as praise or concern.
"Occupational hazard," he said.
"Who are you?" Lysa asked. "Or… what are you?"
The stone was quiet for a long moment.
"I was an engine," it said. "I was a bridge. I was a door. Then I was a wound. Now I am tired."
Kairn thought of the broken rings in the Null Bowl.
"Like that," he said, "but stronger."
"Yes," it said simply.
"And you don't like chains," he said.
"No," it said. "Chains are small. Boring. They make straight lines and call it fate. I made holes. I made sideways. That is better."
Fen rubbed his temple.
"We keep finding the worst gods," he muttered. "Did you come here to rest, or to pull us apart?"
"I did not come," the engine said. "I am here. You came. You are loud. The King is loud. The dragon is loud. The bones are loud. I would like quiet."
"We can leave," Lysa said quickly. "If you let us go in one piece. We don't want to break you. We've broken enough things."
The light hummed.
"You are not breaking me," it said. "You are sitting on my teeth. That is… different."
Kairn shifted.
"Teeth," he repeated.
The basin.
The bite.
Right.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The question tasted familiar.
The engine considered.
"I want chains to stop tugging at my edges," it said. "I want the King to stop pretending he is a door-maker. He is not. He is a lock. Locks are dull. Locks need keys. Keys need doors. I am tired of locks."
"You and me both," Kairn said.
The stone shook.
Was that a laugh?
"You are broken like me," the engine said. "Door that tried to be a chain, chain that tried to be a dragon, dragon that tried to be a boy. You do not fit."
"Thanks," he said dryly.
"That is good," it said. "Things that do not fit can slip."
Lysa's eyes narrowed.
"Slip where?" she asked.
"Elsewhere," it said. "Not the King's web. Not the dragon's grave. Not your little city. Sideways. Away."
Kairn's breath caught.
"Out," he said.
"Yes," it said. "Out."
Fen stared.
"You're saying there's a way to leave his whole sky," he said. "Not just his net in this patch. All of it."
"Yes," the engine said. "If I open. If you fit."
Silence again.
He felt every gaze shift to him.
Lysa's.
Fen's.
The kids'.
Even the bone-walker's.
The dragon in his chest was suddenly very attentive.
The Null rings hummed higher.
The King's web trembled at the edge of his awareness, as if it sensed something it couldn't name.
Kairn swallowed.
"What's the cost?" he asked.
The engine sounded amused.
"You learn fast," it said. "Cost is simple. If you slip, you do not come back the same. If you go out, you carry me. A piece. A seed. I am tired, but I would like to see other skies before I die. I would also like to stop this King from putting his little locks on my cousins elsewhere. If he finds them."
"You want to ride me too," Kairn said.
"Everything wants to ride you," Fen muttered. "You have terrible luck."
"Not ride," the engine said. "Lean. You already have others leaning. What is one more hand on the wheel?"
"Too many hands, the cart snaps," Lysa said sharply.
"Then do not let them all pull at once," it said, as if that were obvious.
Kairn almost laughed.
The sound came out strained.
"Is this the only way out?" he asked.
"For you," it said. "Now. Yes. Later, no. Later, maybe the King fills the sky with more chains. Maybe he learns from you. Maybe there is no sideways left."
Lysa's hand found his.
Her grip was firm.
"You don't have to say yes," she said. "We can use this place as a blind. Hit him from here. Break more of his web. You don't have to… leave everything."
Leave.
He thought of the mine.
The tower.
The grave.
The Null.
Maereth.
The preacher.
The kids.
Lysa.
The dragon.
The King.
The sky.
He thought of spending the rest of his life scrabbling under someone else's net, no matter how many holes he bit in it.
He thought of stepping sideways, somewhere the chains didn't reach yet.
Where he could choose what to build before the King did.
He thought of how many other people might still be trapped in mines and chains and graves.
Would he be abandoning them?
Or finding a way to come back sharper?
"I don't know what's out there," he said.
"Neither do I," the engine said. "That is why it is interesting."
Fen groaned.
"I hate that this thing thinks like you," he said.
Lysa's nails dug into Kairn's palm.
"If we go," she said, "we go together. All of us. Or we don't go."
He looked at her.
At the kids.
At Fen.
At the bone-walker, who was watching with gleeful horror.
"You are all insane," the bone-walker said. "I like that."
Kairn's chest hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with chains or dragon fire.
He faced the stone.
"If we say yes," he said, "what happens to the King's web around here?"
The engine hummed.
"I shiver when I open," it said. "His chains will shake. Some will snap. Some will stretch. He will be very annoyed. It will not kill him. It will hurt. It will make him look down when he would rather look up."
Kairn nodded slowly.
"So it hurts him," he said. "Helps us. Gives you what you want. Makes everything worse and better at once."
"Yes," it said.
Lysa took a breath.
"You're going to do it," she said, not a question.
He met her eyes.
"I don't know how to stop," he said softly. "From biting higher."
"I know," she said.
She leaned her forehead against his for a brief, fierce second.
"Fine," she said. "We'll bite sideways this time."
He laughed once.
Then turned back to the stone.
"What do we have to do?" he asked.
"Stand," it said. "Hold on to each other. Do not let go. I will do the rest. Try not to scream too much. It makes the teeth itch."
Fen muttered something that might have been a prayer or a curse.
The kids moved in, hands finding hands, shoulders pressed together.
The bone-walker scampered closer, pressing its bony back against Tam's.
"You are all mad," it said. "This will be fun."
Lysa took Kairn's left hand.
Fen took his right.
Sia, Mar, and Tam latched onto them and each other.
The stone light brightened into a circle around their feet.
The King's web trembled at the edge of Kairn's sense.
The dragon in his chest coiled like a spring.
The Null hummed to a higher pitch.
"Ready?" Kairn asked.
"No," they all said.
He smiled.
"Good enough," he said.
The basin shook.
The bite opened.
Sideways.