Using Varn's voice, the callbody came at Hest.
"Source chain stays," it ordered again.
Hest did not strike the armored knee. The thing had already learned that blow.
He dropped both broken bars beneath its remaining arm and crossed them against the cobbles. When the bronze limb swept down, iron rolled under it. Its own weight carried the hollow throat past Hest and toward the emperor family.
"That was not permission," Hest said.
Valea cut the rain channel behind the body. She did not turn the road or send its weight away. Water from the abandoned smithing lane spilled across the black-green puddle under its roots and showed where the severed source still leaked into the bronze.
Pava saw the dark connection.
She threw Varn's empty, broken breath tube through it.
Glass carried nothing the body could steal. The sharp end opened the wet seam from underneath, and black-green water poured onto ordinary stone.
After the cut, the callbody changed.
