Gray daylight seeped over the ridge like thin milk. Kael woke to a chorus of metal ticks—cooling drips from yesterday's reinforced splice hardening into glassy beads that fell and shattered on the ledge. His back ached where stone met spine, but sleep had shortened the ache to something he could fold away.
Rei sat on the ledge's rim, turning a throwing knife between knuckles. No sparks crawled over her skin; Stormbind slept for once. "Morning," she whispered. Her voice roughened the silence but didn't break it.
Thorn stood farther out, shoulders squared, shield held flat in one hand like a platter. The circular face glowed dull red as it soaked early sun. Emberguard worked quietly now—drawing heat from the shield's metal, storing it in rune channels that criss-crossed his gauntlets. When those channels filled, Thorn could bleed the warmth outward in a rolling flare or pulse it into a blocking shove. Too much heat cooked flesh beneath; too little left the shield brittle as sugar glass. A precarious balance—but then, Thorn had built his life on balances.
Elias crouched nearby, gauntlet braced against the cliff. Thin lines of violet dust circled the raw-crystal splints and bled into unseen diagrams he scratched across the rock. "Vector lines look steady," he said without turning. His Kinetic Path could twist gravity in narrow streams: a one-Essentia Nudge that shifted a falling pebble; a four-Essentia shove strong enough to throw a man; an eight-Essentia Vector Cage that bent the air into a crushing net. Yesterday's repairs had bought him two safe heavy casts—nothing more. He whispered to the crystal like a craftsman coaxing flawed metal, promising to treat it kindly.
Veyra lingered near the extinguished fire, fingertips trailing charcoal dust. Her fox-mask figment chased a floating ash mote, batting it like a kitten; the wolf-mask walked slow circles around her boots. Dreambinder figments were mirror-selves spun from emotion. Each cost her a thread of Essentia to birth, another to maintain. Two figments were comfortable; three pinched like a headache; four made her words slur. At present she kept two alive, one ear listening to their phantom commentary.
Kael rose, slung the Nullglaive across his back. The heirloom's matte shaft drank light, silver inlays pulsing faintly as if greeting dawn. The blade held no flashy power at his tier—only perfect edge alignment, preternatural balance, and a low keening note when held against Veil disturbances. Yesterday he'd felt that note deepen the moment hot slag touched steel; the weapon drank resonance, grew colder, steadier. Someday—if he survived enough climbs—it might reveal more.
He cleared his throat. "Weather's on our side for once. No gearwinds in the gorge until midday. We'll push for the Cobalt-Forge anchor map pointed out."
Rei flipped her knife one last time, sheathed it. "If their map's a trick, we improvise."
"I'd rather improvise rested," Elias muttered, rubbing the heel of his palm across tired eyes.
Thorn hefted the shield. "We move slow. Keep muscles loose. No sprinting until we see red runes."
Veyra's fox-mask mimed an extravagant stretch, arms overhead. She offered a grin—not quite sorrow, not quite humor. "And if we meet hunters who smell Essentia?"
Kael's answer was simple: "We teach them to hate the scent."
They broke camp, leaving nothing but flattened ash. Chains overhead groaned; the Leviathan's distant bellow rolled like thunder still half asleep.
They followed the Cobalt-Forge route—up a cracked staircase no wider than Thorn's shoulders, around a lip of basalt polished by centuries of wind, and into a canyon littered with shattered mirrorstone. The shards reflected thin slivers of sky, giving the ground the illusion of bottomless pits. A single wrong step would bruise pride more than bone, but the sight made dizzy caution.
Halfway through, Rei halted, hand raised. A whisper rolled down the canyon: chittering metal on stone. Kael leaned, Nullglaive half drawn. Silver echoes—tiny compared to Slagwyrms—scurried between mirror fragments: crab-shaped things, half rust, half glass. They flowed in a living tide toward a heap of broken Essentia vials near a collapsed ridge wall.
Thorn exhaled. "Scavengers."
"Shard-Scrabs," Elias supplied. "They chew residual energy. Leave them be and they leave us."
They skirted the crabs, stepping lightly between mirrorstone spikes. Veyra's wolf-mask padded at the canyon lip, head low, tracking some unseen pattern. She paused, cocking an ear. "Voices," she murmured. The figment pointed with a nose toward a half-hidden crevasse.
Kael peered through a slanted gap. A pair of survivors in gray cloaks—Cobalt-Forge from the prior night—tended a wounded comrade. The injured cadet's calf was ragged, ripped as though by serrated glass. They hadn't yet spotted Kael's group; their lantern gave sickly green light.
He knocked on the stone. "We have bandage cloth."
The wary leader from before glanced up, relief warring with mistrust. "We'll pay."
"No trade," Kael said, sliding one of their spare bindings through the gap. The Nullglaive's silver edge hummed, catching a whisper of green light. "We all climb the same chain."
She nodded, humbled, and began wrapping the leg. He noted the bite shape; gearwinds hadn't done that. Something with jaws had.
Rei caught his eye as they moved on. "Favors cost less than vials."
"Sometimes cost is the point," he admitted. That, at least, wasn't coin language; it was math.
Midmorning heat built as they reached a narrow saddle overlooking the anchor ridge the map had promised. From here, three chains looped outward into a triangular brace. At the center rested a glowing node carved like a thorned crown, runes blinking furious crimson.
Rei groaned softly. "Spitting drama."
Elias's gauntlet pulsed brighter in response, eager yet fragile. "Force flow is… unstable. That crown is over-pressurized. We can bleed it down."
"Plan?" Thorn asked.
Kael studied runic flicker. "We'll need a precise vector puncture on the bottom seam, lightning to cauterize overflow, figments to redirect top vents, and shield flare to keep splash off the chain."
Elias swallowed. "Vector puncture is the heavy cast. Crystal holds one shot."
Rei nodded. "My legs hold one more Stormbind tether."
Veyra laid a hand on her fox-mask. "Two figments remain."
Thorn rotated the shield, Emberguard runes blooming hotter as they drank early sun. "Enough flare for one burst."
Kael drew the Nullglaive. "Then we synchronize."
They descended, timing each step with chain vibrations. At crown's base Elias braced, calling the metrics. Thorn locked his shield in a low slot—the top rim glowing orange. Veyra's figments swirled above, tails spreading like smoky sails; the crimson runes dimmed where shade touched. Rei knelt opposite Elias, daggers poised, blue sparks gathering along steel.
Elias inhaled, counted down from three. On one, he drove his gauntlet point into the crown seam. Eight Essentia bled in a single breath. The crystal bracing lit purple, Vector energy drilling a thumb-wide hole. Runes flushed bright yellow—pressure hissed outward.
Immediately Rei flung Stormbind arcs, cross-stitching the vent with blue lightning. The sizzling strands channeled Essentia fire into controlled streams that ran harmless into the ground.
The crown shuddered, energy roiling up. Veyra's figments rippled, bending light so the exhaust jets veered sideways into empty air. Thorn slammed shield edge down, Emberguard bursting white, nullifying the last spit of molten rune-fire.
Reds faded. The crown settled to pulsing gold.
System text sparkled in relief:
[Anchor Node Stabilized — Sync 60 %]
Elias toppled to one knee, crystal gauntlet smoking. Rei sagged, daggers dim. Thorn's shield hissed steam. Veyra's figments returned to perch, shimmering proud but weary.
Kael remained upright, Nullglaive blade cooling against the crown's surface. He might have sworn he felt a heartbeat run through the steel—one slow thud answering the node's new pulse.
The others looked to him, waiting. He realized they did so because he was still standing, but also because the blade on his back hummed with a certainty none of them quite possessed for themselves yet.
He forced an exhale. "We set camp near the node. Short watches. No hero shifts." His voice cracked; he masked it with a sip of canteen water.
Rei managed a crooked grin. "A new motto?"
"Only until I find a better one."
She wiped sweat, nodded. Thorn settled near a chain rung, easing his gauntlets into cool rock. Veyra dismissed the fox-mask; the wolf remained, ears twitching at distant echoes. Elias whispered to his fractured crystal, promising more careful load cycles.
Kael sheathed the Nullglaive. The inlays flared once, satisfied, then fell quiet. Overhead, the Leviathan tugged again, but the new anchor held fast. No grand metaphors came to him—just the steady, necessary fact that today they had climbed, and tomorrow they would again.
The chain rattled once more—long, low, expectant. Kael lay down on warm stone, closed his eyes, and let the mountain's throb sync with his slowing pulse.