The throat hook touched Kaul before Jiang reached the copper mouth.
Its curve turned away from the rescued cradles and rested under the man's jaw. Kaul held the black-green braid in one hand. The other remained on his bare neck, feeling for the place where his voice moved beneath skin.
The green-sailed rider raised Kaul's own hook blade behind him.
"If that turns toward the cradles again, I cut it through you."
Kaul did not face her. "Cut the braid first."
"I may have time for both."
Her dead sister's laugh was gone from Skykeel. Nothing in the lost voice had told the rider what to do with the man who kept it. She chose the blade anyway and kept her damaged body between Kaul and the juvenile shells.
Jiang pulled himself through the flooded root.
