Chapter 5: Stand in the Ash
They ran until the Threadway thinned to brick and bone.
Lysera unwove a latch, and cold night slammed into them, an alley where two walls leaned together like broken teeth. Elias slid out first, Rook tight against his chest, spear in hand, he didn't hear pursuit, he felt it, the resonance in his ribs thudding to a rhythm that wasn't his heartbeat.
"Here," Lysera breathed, she pointed past him.
The alley opened onto a shattered courtyard, a ring of toppled columns, a dry basin choked with ash, one arch still standing like a gallows. Violet threads pooled faintly in the stone at the center, flowing outward in slow ripples. Choke points everywhere. Kill zones if you had the right hands.
"We can't keep running," Elias rasped, his throat still burned from a fire that belonged to another world "We take this and hold."
Lysera's eyes cut across the rubble, measuring sightlines, cover, the way a weaver might read a complicated knot, she nodded once "there."
They moved, Elias to the arch's shadow, Lysera to a knee high wall with a broken statue behind it. She set a chalk pebble on the coping and drew a quick figure with one finger. The chalk lines glowed and sank into the stone like water. The air hummed, and a faint veil spilled up, a wisp thin ward, angled to bend sound and blur outlines.
Rook wriggled from the sling and dropped lightly to the ground, the cub limped only a little, silver eyes sharp. He padded to the arch, sniffed, then backed one pace and tapped the stone with his paw, two inches to the left of where Elias would have planted his boot.
"Good catch," Elias muttered, stepping wide. His body remembered booby traps from deserts and stairwells. If threads could be strung like tripwires, a smart pup would spot their tremble first.
A bell tolled, not the slow, mournful warners from the runner dens, three quick chimes, a pause, then two long notes that rolled along the streets like a wave combing grit.
Lysera's jaw tightened. "Sweep pattern," she said "they're combing by grids."
"Then they know we dropped out here," Elias said, he crouched, tested the spear's splintered shaft. The head Garren had pressed into his hand earlier, dull-black, etched with lines he couldn't follow, sat sure and heavy. "Woven steel?"
Lysera nodded. "Enough to bite a Warden's ward if you land it true." She slid a bolt into her crossbow. Its head carried the same fine etching. "Do not let them speak the whole prayer, cut their breath or break their circle."
Elias's mouth went dry "Prayers?"
"They braid while they fight," Lysera said. "Their mouths are knives."
Bootsteps, finally, not stealthy, confident, a small procession fanned into the courtyard, six Wardens in ash grey coats stitched with dull thread, mail glinting under, faces shadowed by half helms stamped with a looped sigil. Two carried hooked glaives whose blades thrummed faintly, one held a staff ringed with iron bells that chimed soft as his strode, each sound tugging at the Loom.
Behind them walked the pleasant voice.
He was tall, clean shaven, hands folded as if in a chapel aisle, the white collar at his throat gleamed even in ashlight, he smiled when he saw the courtyard, as if it were a parlor he visited often.
"Good evening," he called, tone warm enough to blister "a little far from honest doors, aren't we?"
Lysera did not move Elias watched the angle of her crossbow and the set of her body and knew she had already drawn lines across the space, their space, not his. He adjusted, fitting himself into the picture she'd chosen, arch at his back, the basin to his left, a tangle of fallen columns to his right. Rook slid into the crook of his heel and went still, ears pricked.
"Come see our faces," the pleasant voice invited "Let the Light judge, if the Loom is with you, you have nothing to fear."
"Funny," Elias said under his breath, "I've heard something similar before."
Another Warden stepped forward, a broad man with pitted knuckles and a scar that split his lip, his voice was lower, impatient. "Enough chorus, Prelate. The runner and the beast are in there." His gaze scanned the rubble with a butcher's hunger, "And the stink of Outsider besides."
The Prelate's smile did not dim "Brother Merek is zealous," he said as if confiding a joke "but wolves make shepherds hard of hand."
Lysera's whisper brushed Elias's ear without turning her head "the bells, if he rings them thrice while in prayer, the ward on their armor thickens, break his rhythm."
"Copy," Elias murmured" he's mine."
The Wardens advanced in a shallow V shape formation, two with glaives, one with a short sword and buckler, one with a chain weighted by a hooked weight, the staff bearer with his bells, and the Prelate unarmed, or pretending to be.
Elias set his feet, the resonance trembled in his ribs, tugging a fraction to the left… then easing when he shifted. He didn't think about it. He trusted the tug.
"Last chance," the Prelate called "step out, hand over the beast and kneel, mercy is still an option."
"Run that on someone else," Elias said. He slid the spear head forward until its dull-black tip peered past the arch.
The Prelate's smile thinned "So be it."
Brother Merek surged first, chain uncoiling with a hiss, he swung low, weight skittering across stone toward Elias's ankle. Elias hopped the strike and snapped the spear haft down the weight rang against woven steel and rebounded, Merek yanked, trying to tangle the shaft, Elias rolled his wrists, let the chain slide, then pinned it under boot and wrenched. Merek stumbled forward with a curse.
A bolt snapped from Lysera's warded shadow, it struck the glaive man on the left below the collarbone, he grunted and kept coming, but slower, she'd threaded pain into the shot.
The bell staff chimed once, clear, sweet, Threads rippled underfoot, Elias felt his balance go wrong, like a deck pitching. He gritted his teeth and planted harder.
"Break his song," Lysera hissed.
Rook moved first.
The cub streaked from Elias's heel, a dark blur cutting the ash, darted between Merek's legs, and went straight for the staff bearer. The Warden startled, the bells chimed in a ragged jangle. Rook snapped at the hand that held the staff, teeth flashing, not enough to maim, but enough to spoil, the chiming faltered, half prayer turned to noise.
"Back!" Elias barked the cub vaulting past a slash like he'd trained for it made his heart lurch. Rook obeyed at once, sliding behind the broken basin.
The glaive men closed.
Elias didn't meet the first blade, he met the shaft, stepping inside the arc, jamming his spear-haft across the other pole, and wrenching hard. The black spearhead grated along etched steel. For a second, the hum under his hands deepened; the two metals argued. Elias shoved, won the lever, and smashed his forehead into the Warden's nose, cartilage crunched, the man reeled, guard high.
"Left!" Lysera snapped.
Elias pivoted, the second glaive hissed for his ribs, he slammed the spearhead down, catching the blade on the dull black tip, and rode it to the ground. Sparks, but not like steel, more like angry fireflies, the Warden cursed and yanked back. Elias thrust at the gap in the man's mail just under the armpit, the etched head bit cloth and chain and slid, not deep, a kiss, not a kill, the Warden grunted and fell back.
The chain whistled again, Elias dropped, felt the weight cut wind over his scalp, and rolled under the arch. Stone screamed as the weight bit into it, Merek yanked, and a fist-sized chunk of arch tore free and bounced.
"Hold," the Prelate said, calm as a librarian, he had not moved from the courtyard's edge, his eyes were on Elias, weighing. "You hear it, don't you," he murmured. "The Loom sings, and you tap your foot."
"Your mouth ever close," Elias said, chest heaving.
The bell man tried to chime again, Lysera's second bolt took him in the thigh, he staggered and his rhythm broke, the hum underfoot eased a fraction.
Merek roared and charged, the chain scythed in a brutal arc, Elias stepped through it, hands high, spear horizontal, letting the links rake his forearm instead of his throat. Pain burst bright, wet heat slicking his sleeve, he locked the shaft against Merek's shoulder and shoved, they slammed into the broken arch. Stone cracked, the chain snagged on the spear ferrule, Merek grinned through bloody teeth and yanked hard to bind.
"Bad play," Elias grunted, he let go with one hand, drew the thread etched knife Garren had given him, and punched it into Merek's side where mail parted at the hip. The knife went home with a hateful little hum. Merek choked and folded Elias ripped free and shoved him away.
The glaive man with the bleeding collarbone lunged again, faster this time, mouth shaping words Elias couldn't understand. The etched blade hissed with thin light, his ward flaring as he chanted. Elias fell back one step, spear up, the resonance dragging at his bones like a tide.
Lysera rose from her cover then, pale as frost, fingers drawing quick sigils in the air, thin veils sprang up, angled planes of pressure that turned the next slash aside with a sound like glass sighimg. She moved as if the world itself had hinges she could set with a touch.
"Two more on the right," she called "keep the arch."
Elias kept it, he had fought hallways in bad cities, you make the door smaller than the men coming through it, you let them bleed on each other to reach you.
The Prelate finally stepped forward, his hands were still folded, he murmured something, gentle, almost kind, and the air around his shoulders brightened like dawn behind fog. No bells, no blade, ust a warmth that made Elias's teeth ache.
"Lay down," the Prelate said softly, as if speaking to a fevered child "let the pain end."
The resonance wavered, for a beat, Elias's palms felt slick, his grip wrong, his knees empty, it was like falling asleep on patrol, the body betraying the order.
Rook barked, a sharp, surgical sound that snapped like a twig breaking. The cub launched at Elias's boot and bit, not flesh, but the leather lace, yanking hard. Pain sparked, real and clean. The vertigo broke.
"Nice try," Elias grated, and the Prelate's eyes cooled to chips of river ice.
"Brother," the priest said without looking away from Elias.
The glaive man on Elias's left surged, blade angling for Lysera, Elias chose badly or perfectly, he didn't know which yet, he stepped across and took the strike on the spear haft, turning it with a full body shove. The blow hammered his burned shoulder, his vision flared white, he answered with a straight, ugly thrust at the Warden's throat, the etched head bit through ward light with a protesting whine and scored a shallow line that bled real, dark red.
The Warden fell back coughing.
"Enough," the Prelate said, and for the first time his voice wasn't pleasant, it was flat, final, he lifted one hand as if to bless.
The bells rang, not from the staff on the ground, but from the sigil hammered into every helm. A chord shivered out and spidered through the courtyard stones, the hum under Elias's feet pitched high, wrong, Lysera's ward planes trembled.
"Down!" Lysera snapped.
The courtyard floor cracked along the pooled threads, a snare, hair fine lines, whipped up from the basin and coiled for Elias's legs.
He moved on instinct. He had no plan, he stepped where the tug in his bones said yes and not no, and the threads missed him by a breath. They snared the spear's shaft instead. The black wood shrieked as it flexed. The head quivered, humming like a struck tuning fork.
Elias wrenched.
The spear didn't break.
It sang.
The hum in his hands surged, a note that fit the Drag in his ribs exactly, as if the world had finally found the pitch he'd been hearing since the fire. The etched lines along the metal brightened a shade, just enough that Lysera's head snapped toward him in shock.
"Elias —" she began.
Too late, the Wardens felt it too, the Prelate's eyes widened, not with fear but with recognition. "Ah," he breathed "there you are."
They came all at once, chain, glaive, prayer.
Elias set his feet under the arch and lifted the spear, the hum running up his arms like a current he couldn't shut off. He did not understand what he was doing.
He only knew it was time to stop running.
The Wardens surged as one, six blades and voices rising in a knot of iron and light, the courtyard rang with the scrape of steel, the hiss of prayers, the faint, bone-deep tolling of the sigils etched into their helms.
Elias didn't think, he reacted, his body knew the rhythm of ambushes, the geometry of narrow alleys, the pulse of men who thought they already had him beaten. He planted himself in the arch's shadow, Rook a low growl at his heel, Lysera weaving sigils in the half cover at his side.
The resonance inside him was louder now, straining like a taut wire. The spear hummed faintly in his grip, not light exactly but pressure, weight where it should be wood and iron, as if the world leaned through it.
"Left!" Lysera snapped.
Elias pivoted, the spear swinging across his body. The glaive man came in high, steel teeth hissing. Elias met it with a brutal downward block. The hum in his hands kicked like recoil, and for a blink the Warden's blade skipped sideways as though repelled, Elias lunged, driving his shoulder into the man's chest. The Warden staggered back two paces, surprised more than hurt.
The second glaive carved in low, angling for his thigh, Elias hopped back, breath ragged, spear butt cracking stone to pivot himself out of reach.
Lysera loosed a bolt, thread etched, silver veined it punched into a Warden's shoulder, flaring light. The man cried out but kept advancing, tearing the shaft free with blood slicked hands, his ward flickered, faltered, then steadied again.
"Stubborn bastard," Elias hissed.
"They braid as they bleed," Lysera shot back. "Every word a stitch."
The bell staff bearer, limping from her earlier shot, slammed the staff down, the bells rang in quick succession, a prayer half shouted. The air wavered, and the Loom's hum skewed sideways, Elias's knees almost buckled, is head pounded, vision narrowing.
Then Rook moved.
The cub darted across the ash, silver eyes blazing, and snapped at the staff itself, its teeth caught a dangling strip of threadbound leather. The prayer fractured mid verse, the bells clashing out of time the hum faltered, just enough for Elias to wrench himself free.
"Atta boy!" Elias barked.
But the reprieve lasted seconds, the chain whistled, Brother Merek's replacement, a lean man with hollow cheeks. Elias ducked under the first sweep, but the second arced higher, he blocked with the spear haft, pain screaming up his burned arm, the chain coiled, catching the shaft near the blade.
The Warden grinned, teeth yellow, your mine now, heretic."
He yanked, Elias let him, instead of pulling back, Elias surged forward, he drove his boot into the Warden's knee with a crack, the man howled, balance breaking. Elias wrenched the spear free and hammered the butt into his jaw, teeth sprayed, the Warden collapsed.
More boots thundered at the courtyard's edge. Elias glanced up, three figures limping from an alley, weapons half raised, for an instant, his chest lurched.
Grey Hook.
Tamsin first, healer's satchel bloodied but still buckled, Noll behind her, eyes wide but jaw set, carrying a battered short sword. Elvi last, her bow already drawn, knuckles white.
They were alive.
"Took your time," Elias rasped, throat raw.
Tamsin didn't smile. "We buried Garren." She glanced at Rook, then Elias. "Don't make it for nothing."
The Wardens faltered, momentarily surprised. The Prelate's pleasant mask cracked, just for a heartbeat, he spread his hands, voice smooth again, "so many lambs in one pen."
Elvi's arrow hissed, fast as breath, it shattered against a Warden's helm, enough to stagger him sideways. Noll charged the opening, slashing hard, the boy's farm muscles carried the blade true, but the Warden's ward flared, catching most of it. Sparks flew.
Lysera barked, "Break the chant! Do not let them finish!"
The courtyard became chaos. Wardens chanting, Grey Hook shouting, blades on stone, arrows hissing, bells ringing out of time. The Loom's hum surged and bucked like a storm in Elias's ribs.
He swung, blocked, stabbed, his body moving on instinct, his burned arm screamed, his breath rasped fire. The spear in his hands vibrated like it wanted to leap forward, to finish what he couldn't.
The Prelate stepped closer, unhurried, eyes fixed only on Elias. He raised one hand, his lips moved, not in prayer, but in recognition.
"You are not blind," he said softly, so only Elias heard "The Loom listens to you."
Elias's chest heaved, sweat stung his eyes. Rook's growl thrummed at his heel, Lysera loosed another bolt, Elvi another arrow, Noll screamed defiance, but Elias heard only the resonance pounding in his bones.
The spear hummed louder, his vision sharpened, every thread around him pulling taut, the world leaned, waiting.
And for the first time since the fire, Elias Edge stopped being a man running.
He was a man on the edge of something else.
The fight teetered on the edge of collapse.
Lysera's wards cracked under glaive strikes that bit deeper each swing, Elvi's quiver was nearly dry, Noll's bent blade wavered as he blocked a cut that rattled his teeth. Tamsin knelt in reaching for the knife at her belt.
And Rook,
The cub darted out, silver eyes blazing, teeth snapping at a Warden's ankle, for a moment it worked. Then the chain came whipping back, weight screaming down in a lethal arc aimed straight at the pup.
"NO!" Elias roared, voice tearing his throat raw, he surged forward, too far, too slow,
The resonance that had haunted his bones since the fire didn't just hum. It sang.
Everything slowed.
His pulse no longer dragged, his blood no longer burned, his legs drove him faster than the pain in his back should ever allow. His lungs pulled air without the familiar fire, every sense sharpened, the ash falling, the arcs of steel, the threads vibrating under his boots.
He was moving before he thought.
He hit the ground between Rook and the Warden's strike, spear lashing up. The chain hammered down, but Elias didn't fold, his arms were steady, muscles braced with a strength that wasn't just his own.
The spear caught the blow with a ringing crack, the shaft should have split, instead, the weapon sang.
The hum that had gnawed at his ribs now poured through his bones, into his shoulders, his arms, into the wood and steel. For a heartbeat, his whole body lit from the inside, pale light threading his veins beneath the skin. His muscles still throbbed, his ribs still ached, but the Loom lent him enough to stand.
The Warden yanked the chain, this time, Elias held, the links grated loose, sparks spitting.
Elias's chest heaved, the resonance didn't stop at his muscles, it surged outward, searching, finding his hands clenched the spear, and the etched head pulsed with pale fire. The carvings along the metal glowed faintly, weaving to life, spilling light down the shaft until his whole weapon shimmered like a coal caught in a draft.
Elias stared at it, stunned, his spear wasn't just a tool anymore, it was part of him, alive, thrumming, waiting.
Lysera froze mid weave, crossbow half raised, her pale eyes widened, lips parting as though she recognized the impossible. Elvi faltered with her last arrow, staring. Even Noll lowered his battered sword for a heartbeat.
None of them spoke, none of them dared.
The Prelate did, his pleasant mask cracked, eyes burning with hungry recognition. "At last."
Elias didn't hear him.
All he saw was Rook at his heel, silver eyes unblinking, trusting him without hesitation, all he felt was the Loom itself thrumming in his grip, the note in his chest matching the spear's song.
Light crawled further across him, up his arms, across his shoulders, veins shimmering faintly beneath skin slick with sweat and blood, his breath came steady, too steady. He felt the ash in the air, the rhythm in the Wardens' chants, the fracture lines in their wards, the world was threads, and for the first time, he could pluck one.
He tightened his grip, lowered the weapon.
"Not my fucking cub," Elias growled.
The spear flared, etchings blazing white, light spilling across the courtyard, the Wardens staggered back, faces tightening in shock. Lysera shielded her eyes with one hand. The Grey Hook froze, breath caught.
Elias drove forward, spear howling in his hands