The seam above the ridge held like a thin cut of light. Cold air rolled across the platform. When it shifted, it brought a dry smell from the other side—cedar, iron, smoke from oil lamps, pressed paper, winter tea. Selina lifted her spear a little, then lowered it. Kael adjusted his grip on Mira and turned so the wind hit his back and the light hit his shoulder, not her face.
"Talk to me," Selina said quietly. "Breath, pulse, head."
"My breath is even," Mira said. "Pulse is quicker than I want. Head is heavy. The light under my skin is not pushing. It is steady."
"Good," Selina said. "We hold that."
Below, the red cloaks argued in quick clipped phrases over their radios. The handlers cursed. The creatures paced at the base of the band and threw themselves at rock that would not take them. Arthur's guards pulled back to the road and formed two lines around the trucks. Harland kept sending orders. No one followed them.
A clear tone sounded from under the platform. It was the old bell in the spine of the mountain. Selina's shoulders loosened one notch. The tone came again, stronger. The seam widened with a soft crack like ice shifting. A strip of sky showed through from the other side—darker, clearer, higher.
Kael looked at Selina. "Now."
"Now," she answered.
They walked together to the center of the platform. Selina pressed her palm to a low stone block that sat flush with the floor. The block warmed. Lines spread from it in nine directions, running to the terrace edges and down into the dry canals. The lines took light and did not let go. The bowl began to glow from below.
Mira's fingers curled once against Kael's coat. She did not break. She did not ask to lie down. She set her jaw. "It is loud," she said. "Not outside. Inside."
"I hear it too," Kael said. "We ride it."
The seam split like a curtain. Light fell across the bowl in a clear sheet. It did not blind. It revealed. Shapes wrote themselves into the air first as faint outlines, then as pale structures, then as stone and tile and paper and wood. Rooflines took their places. Doors faced the terraces. The dry canals filled with a slow moving flow of clear water. Banners unrolled from poles that rose out of sockets that had been empty a moment before. The cloth did not carry dust. It carried a clean pale emblem: a white lotus drawn with eight strokes. The old city arrived in a breath.
Mira drew in air like she had been underwater and pushed to the edge of what she could hold. Kael held her through it. Selina braced them both with her stance and the set of her spear.
From the far end of the bowl, two figures stepped through the light and onto the highest terrace. They did not hurry. They walked like people who know where their feet belong. The first was a woman in a dark robe bound at the waist with a shallow V of silver plates over her chest and shoulders. Her hair was twisted into a knot and bound with a pin of bone. Her face was spare and clear. The second was a man with a long scar across his left cheek that had healed flat. He wore a plain coat over a light mail shirt and carried an unadorned blade. Both of them stopped at the terrace edge and looked down at the platform.
The woman spoke first. Her voice carried without strain. "Names."
Selina answered. "Selina Vale. Keeper."
The man tilted his head a fraction. His eyes moved to Kael. "And you."
"Kael Vale," Kael said. "Warden."
The woman's gaze moved to the bundle in Kael's arms. "And the one you carry."
Selina did not hesitate. "Xuan Lian. Reborn."
Sound changed along the terraces. Doors opened. Footsteps came. People stepped out into the morning. Some wore dark robes like the woman. Some wore working clothes with short sleeves and tool belts. Some wore light armor. All of them stopped when their eyes fell on the white lashes and the even light under pale skin.
Mira spoke without lifting her head. "I cannot see you. I hear you. I smell cedar and oil. I know this place. I do not know your names."
The woman came down one terrace, then the next, then the third, until she stood one level above the platform. She did not step down. She put her right fist to her left palm and bowed once. The motion was simple and exact. "Elder Han," she said. "Keeper of the Gate and the Long Store. This is Elder Tarek, Warden of the High Ridge. We answer the call."
Selina bowed back. "We held the line at the band. The Red Veil are below with Arthur's men. They have beasts. Their master is not here. Their voice is here."
"We felt them," Elder Han said. "We kept the city closed until the mountain could take the weight. The door is open. It will not close again." She looked at Mira. "How long do you stand?"
"Minutes," Mira said. "Not hours."
"Then we do not waste them," Elder Tarek said. He lifted his chin and spoke toward the terraces, not raising his voice. "Runners to the lower tunnels. Lock the banded thresholds. Archers on the horn line. Healers to the platform and the second terrace. No one uses fire on the east wind. We hold the bowl for now. We do not chase. We do not fall for their noise."
Men and women moved without shouting. Two ran down a side ramp and vanished into the stone. Four archers jogged to a notch above the band and set quivers in a line without looking at their hands. A healer in a neat blue sash came down a stair with a box and a roll of cloth. She stopped two paces away and bowed her head to Mira and then to Kael and Selina.
"I am Lin," she said. "I do not touch without permission. May I check her pulse and temperature?"
Selina answered. "Yes."
Lin warmed her hands against her sleeves, then took Mira's wrist lightly in three fingers, counted, and let go. She touched two points under Mira's jaw, then the back of her hand, then below her ear. She stepped back. "Pulse is strong and variable. Heat is high but steady. No fever. No collapse. She needs water with salt. She needs rest in the shielded room. She cannot drink the thing they gave her."
"She will not," Selina said.
Lin looked at Kael. "Your forearms are marked. Do you need them closed?"
Kael looked down. He had not noticed the cuts from the beast's claws. "Later."
"Now," Lin said. She did not raise her voice. "You bleed slowly. It will not kill you. It will make you slow. We do not give the enemy what they have not earned." She took a clean cloth from her roll, poured clear liquid from a small bottle, and pressed the cloth to the worst cut. It stung. He did not move. She bound it with a tight wrap and a knot that sat where it would not catch. She did three more, quick and neat. Then she stepped back. "Enough for the next hour."
"Thank you," he said.
Elder Han moved down the last step and stood at the edge of the platform. She looked at Selina a long moment and let the silence speak what had to be said between keepers who had held different kinds of doors. Then she turned to Kael and to Mira in his arms.
"If you can stand, it matters," Han said to Mira. "Not because we need a show. Because the ground remembers weight."
Mira shifted in Kael's arms. He looked down. "We can try," he said. "You tell me if you want to stop."
"I will," she said.
He set his feet and lowered her slowly until her soles touched the cold stone. Her legs shook. He did not let go. He let her feel the floor and the line of his hands at the same time. She took one breath. Then another. She lifted her head. She did not open her eyes. She did not need to. She straightened her spine one inch at a time until she was standing.
The bowl held its breath. The wind flattened for a heartbeat. The line of the door in the sky brightened like a blade catching light. Under the platform, the bell rang once, clear and short. Elder Han closed her eyes and bowed her head.
Kael stayed where he was, close, hands steady at Mira's shoulders and forearms. He did not step away. He did not make a speech. He said one sentence to her and only to her. "I am here."
"I know," she said.
Elder Tarek went to one knee. He did not kneel like a man begging. He knelt like a soldier taking an oath. He set his fist to the floor and bowed his head. "My lady," he said. "We held the high ridge for you through two winters and a hundred years. We will hold it again."
Selina did not kneel. She stood beside Mira and put her hand over her heart and bowed her head. "You decide the pace," she said. "We make the road."
Voices moved along the terraces. Some knelt. Some stood with hands at their sides, faces lifted. No one shouted. No one sang. The city did not need noise to be sure of itself.
Below, the Red Veil saw the city as a shimmer and a mistake. They could not agree on what had happened. Some said it was a trick. Some said it was a test. The command voice said nothing, then said one thing. "Mark the line. Fall back to the copse. Hold until dusk."
Harland climbed into a truck bed and stared up at the ridge with a face that tried to be blank and failed. Arthur watched the shimmer and felt something break under his anger that he did not know how to fix. He told himself it was contempt. It felt like fear.
On the platform, Elder Han lifted a hand. "Bring the Lotus altar," she called to the terraces. Six men and women lifted a carved stone plinth from a storage niche and carried it to the platform's center. The top was a shallow basin cut in the shape of a lotus with eight petals. The stone was pale. The bowl was clean.
Kael looked at Selina. She met his eyes and nodded. "It is right."
He turned to Mira. "We will move you two steps," he said. "You stand on the center. If your legs go, I lift you. If your head swims, you say so, and I take you down."
"Understood," she said.
He and Selina supported her between them and guided her forward. Her bare feet touched the cold lip of the altar and stepped in. The stone was not slick. It was cool and very smooth. It fit her soles like a form that remembered her from another age. She stood on the center. The first tremor ran through her legs and up her spine. Kael's hands closed around her forearms. Selina's palm braced her lower back.
The lines in the floor lit from the block outward. The eight channels that led to the altar glowed. The bowl warmed. A thin white light rose around her ankles like low fog and stopped at her calves. She breathed. It rose to her knees. She held. It rose to her waist. Elder Han lifted her hand and held it there.
"Enough," Han said. "Hold this line."
The light did not climb further. It condensed under Mira's skin. The shaking eased. Heat moved from the bowl into her bones and stopped at the places where the nectar had left strain. It did not push past them. It held them like hands that knew where the bruises were. The pain that had been bright and sharp in her chest thinned into a wide ache. She did not name it. She stood.
Lin stepped forward again with a cup that steamed. "Salt broth," she said. "Small sips. Your mouth will taste metal for a minute. That will pass."
"Thank you," Mira said. Kael held the cup for her and tilted it a fraction at a time. She swallowed without coughing and let the warmth stack under the light. She made herself stop after three swallows. Lin nodded once.
Elder Tarek watched the ridge and the lower lines at the same time. "They are not climbing," he said.
"They do not like doors they cannot see," Han said. "They will bring something heavy at dusk."
"Then we use daylight," Selina said. "We need names for the watch, for stores, for water, for waste. We need three routes to the lower city."
"You still speak like a keeper," Han said. "Good." She looked at Kael. "And you still stand like a door." Her eyes went to Mira again. "My lady, do you want witnesses, or do you want privacy."
Mira's fingers tightened on Kael's hand. "I want to ask questions," she said. "I cannot do it in front of everyone."
"Then we go inside," Han said. She turned to Lin. "You come. Tarek, the horn line is yours. If they try the band, you call the lower gates and we flood the third channel. We do not break bowstrings for pride."
Tarek lifted two fingers in acknowledgment and jogged up the stair to the notch. Han took the spear from Selina without a word, spun it once to test the weight, and handed it back. "Keep that with you," she said. "You will not need it often. When you do, you will need it at once."
Selina nodded. "Understood."
They moved off the platform into the first ring hall that opened onto the terraces. The hall was high and plain. The floor was polished stone. Niches held unlit lamps. Two inner doors stood shut. Han led them to the left and pushed one open.
The room inside was not ornate. It held a low table, two long benches, a shallow hearth, and a window slit that looked onto the bowl without giving anyone outside a view in. The air was cold but clean. Han shut the door and set a wedge. She went to a wall cabinet, opened it, and brought out a kettle, three cups, and a small jar with rough salt. Lin set her box on the bench and pulled out a folded cloth, a clean shirt, and a small silver knife for checking tongues and eyes.
Mira stood in the center of the room until Kael guided her to the bench and sat beside her. He did not crowd her. He stayed close. Selina took the other side and braced the room with her presence. Han set the kettle on the hearth and lit a small oil fire without ceremony.
"Ask," Han said to Mira. "We speak plainly here. We do not perform."
Mira took a breath. She chose the first question without trying to make it elegant. "Why did you call me my lady."
"Because you are Xuan Lian," Han said. "Because this city was built to serve a vow, and that vow was made to the Lotus Flame. This is not a title for praise. It is a name for work."
"What work," Mira asked.
"To hold a kind of fire that burns without ash," Han said. "To set it where it heals and to turn it where it cuts. To decide which is which when no one else can do it without lying to themselves."
Mira swallowed. "You say that like you expect me to know how."
Han shook her head once. "I expect you to ask until you do."
"Then I will ask again," Mira said. "What do you expect from me today."
"To live," Han said. "To drink. To sleep two hours in the shielded room. To wake and stand again for ten breaths on the altar at dusk when the city needs to feel your weight. To say yes or no when we offer plans. To let these two"—she nodded at Kael and Selina—"decide what noise reaches you."
Mira turned her head toward Kael. "Do you hear that."
"I do," he said.
"Do you agree," she asked.
"Yes," he said.
She turned toward Selina. "Do you agree."
"Yes," Selina said. "I will cut any voice that tries to teach you fear."
"Good," Mira said. "Then I will ask the next thing. What is the Red Veil to you."
Han did not have to think. "A sickness that wears a god's story," she said. "A discipline with no love in it. A mouth that never closes because it is afraid of what it would hear if it did."
"And Arthur," Mira asked. She kept her voice even, but the name made her mouth taste stale.
"A man who brought his fear to priests and paid them to name it power," Han said. "He will be used. He will not like it. He will break things out of spite. We will stop him if he walks the ridge."
The kettle clicked once. Han poured water over a handful of leaves and set the lid. Lin touched Mira's wrist again and checked her nail beds for color, then looked gently under her lids. "No strain in the eyes," Lin said. "No burst vessels. The light is sitting well. Do you feel heat in your throat."
"A little," Mira said.
"Drink warm, not hot," Lin said. "No honey today. Salt and broth. Tea without sugar."
Han poured and passed cups. The tea smelled clean and sharp. Mira sipped and sat still while it took the chill from her tongue.
Selina set her spear within arm's reach of the door and finally let herself lean back against the bench. She looked at Han. "We have stores for three days. Then we need the lower city open."
"The lower city will open by nightfall," Han said. "If the outer seals behave. If they do not, we will cut them. We did not sleep for a hundred years to starve because a latch rusted."
Kael put his cup down. "We need a message to the foothill villages. The ones who are waking with roots. They will come here by instinct. If they walk into the Red Veil's line, they will never arrive."
Han nodded. "We send runners through the west water cut. It goes under the band and comes out at the old ash grove. They will be fast and quiet."
Mira set her cup on the low table and touched the rim twice with her finger to mark its place. "I need to ask you something that is not for today," she said. "I need to ask it now or it will sit in my head and make shape where it should not."
Han did not interrupt. She waited.
"Why did you not come for me sooner," Mira asked. "Why did I wake in a bed with a machine, not here."
Selina's breath caught. Kael's hand tightened on the bench for a second and then flattened. Han did not look at them. She looked at Mira and answered.
"Because the door was shut," she said. "Because the last time we tried to open it before its hour, it killed nine men and cracked the spine of the ridge. Because we needed the world to change first. Because if we had taken you early, the Red Veil would have taken you from us on the road."
Mira nodded once. "Then I am done with that question. I will not carry it and twist it."
"Good," Han said. "You will have more questions like that. Bring them here. We cut them where they belong."
A low horn sounded outside in two long notes and one short. Tarek's signal. Han stood at once and went to the window slit. She looked out without touching the stone. "They tested the band again," she said. "They lost another handler. They will stop until dusk. They will talk and brag to hide that they are afraid of a door that does not want them."
"Then we use the gap," Selina said. She looked at Kael. "We need to see the west cut and the inner gate to the lower city. We need to map where you can move her in a blink if the line breaks."
"I will go," Kael said. He turned to Mira. "I can be away for twenty minutes. Do you want me to go now or stay until you sleep."
Mira did not answer at once. She weighed the two kinds of fear that wanted to make the decision for her. Then she chose without hurry. "Go now," she said. "I will sleep after. If you leave while I sleep, I will think you are gone."
"I will not be gone," he said.
"I know," she said.
He rose. Lin stood and checked his wraps one more time. "Do not open the cuts," she said. "Do not jump the lower channel. Use the plank."
"I will use the plank," he said.
Selina stood. "I go with you."
Han nodded. "Take two from the north stair. No one from the old third cohort. They are too proud for planks." Her mouth curved a fraction. "You know which faces I mean."
"I do," Selina said.
Kael touched Mira's shoulder once. "Sleep soon," he said. "When you wake, I will be back."
"I will hold you to that," she said.
They left. The door shut behind them. The sound was solid. Lin set a folded blanket as a pillow and another across Mira's knees. "Lie down," she said. "You will sleep because your body is smarter than your fear."
Mira lay on her side and set her hand on the bench edge so she could feel the grain. Lin sat on the other bench with her box and set a small sand glass on the table. "I wake you when this runs," she said. "If you wake before, call my name. If you cannot speak, push the cup."
"Thank you," Mira said.
She closed her eyes. The light in her bones did not dim. It flowed into patterns and then into more patterns until the patterns made a map. The map did not have lines for roads. It had lines for breath. She slept.
The lower tunnels were as Selina remembered them in muscle and not at all as she remembered them in air. The seals had held. The damp had not taken the cut work. None of the old rot smells lived here. Kael and Selina took the westward slope at a steady pace with two runners from the north stair who moved with their heads down and their breaths quiet. They reached the water cut and listened. It muttered. Not too high. Not clogged.
Selina tested the plank with her boot and then crossed. Kael crossed behind her with the patience of a man who had broken ankles and did not want to break one today. They climbed the last flight to the inner gate of the lower city. It sat in a deep arch. The latch was a double tie with a broken seal that had broken from age, not hands.
Selina pressed the left tie, then the right. The gate moved a finger-width. Cold wet air slid in. She shut it again. "It opens," she said. "We will not do it now. We need Tarek on the horn line for the first hour after we open. The world will try to run in."
Kael looked at the cut stones. "We can anchor a wedge here and here," he said. "A post here for a bell line. If they force the lower ramp, the bell wakes Han before anyone breaks."
Selina looked at his hands as he measured the space without touching the stone. "You never stopped walking this in your head," she said.
"Every month," he said. "It kept me from breaking."
"Same," she said.
They turned back. On the way up, a runner met them with a small folded paper and a breath that showed he had not run hard enough to make noise. Selina opened the note. It was from Elder Han.
Nora alive above the quarry. One cult scout dead. She will not move until dusk. Send two to watch and do not let them save her early. She orders us not to ruin her work.
Selina folded the paper. "She is alive," she said.
Kael's jaw loosened a fraction. "Good."
"She told us not to be foolish," Selina said.
"She is right," he said.
They climbed, returned to the ring hall, and stepped back into the small room. Lin looked up from her sand glass and put a finger to her lips. Mira slept. Her mouth was soft. Her brow was smooth. The light under her skin pulsed like a slow tide. The sound from outside was a steady low murmur from the terraces and the soft thump of archers moving in the notch. Nothing from the band.
Selina hung her spear on a peg and sat with her back to the wall near the door. Kael sat on the other bench and let the stiffness in his shoulders slide down his arms and out of his hands. He watched Mira sleep without staring. He let himself blink.
The sand ran out. Lin cupped it with her hand to keep the last grains from falling loud, then tipped it back and set it aside. She leaned forward and spoke softly. "Mira," she said. "Wake now. Drink. Then we walk you to the shielded room."
Mira opened her eyes at once, as if she had been sleeping in a place that did not punish waking. She breathed, found herself, and sat up with her palm on the bench for balance. "How long," she asked.
"An hour," Lin said. "No more."
Mira nodded. "Good." She looked toward the door. "Are they still there."
"Yes," Selina said. "They are arguing with rock."
"Let them," Mira said.
Lin brought the broth. Mira drank. Kael stood. "We move to the shield room," he said.
Han met them at the door and led the way. The shield room was small and dark with a low ceiling and a shallow step down. The air was warm without heat. The walls hummed like the throat of a singing bowl that had been touched and left to ring. The floor held a simple mat and a low shelf. Nothing else.
"This room keeps noise out," Han said. "Not just sound. Noise. Ten breaths here is like an hour in the hall. Twenty is too much the first day."
"I understand," Mira said.
"Lie down," Han said. "Breathe. Do not try to listen to the city. Let the city listen to you."
Mira lay on the mat, turned on her side, and set her hand against the wall. The hum recognized her and softened around her palm. Her eyelids lowered. Her breath evened. She did not sleep. She rested without defending herself. That was enough.
Selina waited at the door with Han while Kael stood one step back, hands open, shoulders down.
Han spoke in a low voice so the room would not carry the words. "You pushed her with that drink."
Selina looked at her without flinching. "Yes."
"You would do it again," Han said.
"Yes," Selina said. "Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I would still make the same choice with the same knowledge."
Han nodded once. "Then you can stand here."
Kael did not add to it. He was not asked to. He stood and counted Mira's breaths without making it an act of fear. He fixed the count in his bones like a metronome that would not fail when the horn sounded.
After twenty breaths, Lin touched Selina's wrist and tapped twice. Selina stepped in. "Time," she said softly.
Mira opened her eyes. "I am ready," she said.
They brought her back to the altar before dusk, when the light shifted and the wind turned over. The terraces were quiet. The archers ate in place in small bites and passed cups. The runners came in and out on different routes so their patterns could not be read. The Red Veil held under the trees. They had brought a machine on a flatbed—metal, a ram, a shield. They were building themselves courage.
Mira stood again with Kael's hands steady on her shoulders. The bowl lit again at the lines. The light rose to her knees and held. Elder Han watched the sky instead of the altar. The seam widened a finger's width and showed the first edge of a roof beam from the other side. When the beam set, the bell rang once. Tarek's horn answered with a short call from the notch.
"Good," Han said. "Again at moonrise. Then we let her sleep until dawn."
Kael lifted Mira down from the altar. Her legs shook, but her mouth did not press tight like it had before. She let herself lean against him as they crossed back to the hall. Selina walked close and kept the room of the world organized with small words that were not orders and were not comfort. "Step. Edge. Bench. Cup."
In the small room, Lin checked Mira's pulse again and looked into her eyes with her silver knife's polished back. "Clear," Lin said. "Drink. Then rest. No visitors. No decisions."
Selina looked at Kael. "I will take the first hour with Tarek on the horn line. You sit here and close your eyes. That is not a suggestion."
Kael would have argued on another day. He did not argue now. "One hour," he said. "No more."
"No more," Selina said.
She left. Han left. Lin shut the door half-closed and sat outside with her box and her sand glass. Kael sat on the bench, leaned his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes. He did not sleep. He let his muscles loosen a fraction at a time and counted the fraction with the rhythm of Mira's breath.
Mira lay on her side and did not move for three minutes. Then she spoke without lifting her head. "Kael."
He opened his eyes. "I am here."
"Why did you kneel," she asked. Her voice was soft, not weak. She kept it low so the room would not magnify it.
He turned his head. His eyes were clear. "Because I recognize what you carry," he said. "Because my oath was to the Lotus Flame, not to a man and not to a building. Because my oath was not taken with a chain. It was taken with my face turned to the sky and my hand on the ground. I will not put that oath down. I will not use it to hurt you. I will use it to keep the road clear when you decide where to walk."
She listened to every word and did not let her mind run to guess the words he left out. "Thank you," she said. "Try to sleep."
He huffed a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. "Yes, my lady."
"Do not call me that when we are alone," she said.
"Understood," he said. "Mira."
She closed her eyes. The light under her skin answered the room. The bell under the platform did not ring again. The city took another breath without noise. Below, the Red Veil set their machine on the band and tested the edge. It sparked. It sang. Three men jumped back. One did not move fast enough. The machine ate part of his hand. The command voice told them to wait for night.
On the road, Arthur sat in his truck and stared at the ridge until his eyes watered. Harland tried to sell him a new plan. He did not answer. He picked up his phone and stared at a message that had come two hours ago from a number that did not show a name. It said one thing.
Do not be late when the door opens.
He put the phone down like it might bite him. He told the guards to sleep in shifts. He told Harland to stop talking. He told himself he did not believe in gods. He did not believe himself.
At the quarry, Nora lay on her back under the low shelf and whispered into the phone without hitting send. "I am here," she said. "I am not moving until you move. If they find me first, I will not call your name. I will make noise somewhere else." She put the phone under her thigh so the light would not show through the brush. She closed her eyes and counted to a hundred and then started again.
Night came on the ridge without drama. The seam stayed open. The bowl lights did not look like modern lights. They looked like oil lamps that did not smoke. The archers' eyes adjusted. The Red Veil's machine crew muttered and tried to make their courage sound like science. The creatures paced.
Elder Tarek lifted the horn and gave one long call. Doors shut on the terraces. The band brightened. Selina stepped up to the notch with three archers and an old woman with a coil of line and a hook that could catch a man by the belt without cutting skin. Kael stood in the ring hall with one palm on the stone and the other hand on Mira's shoulder. Lin sat with her back to the door and her eyes on the sand glass.
Mira breathed. The light in her bones held the shape of what it needed to be for the night. She did not try to be what morning would ask. She did not try to be what yesterday had wanted. She held now. It was enough.
When the Red Veil rolled the machine forward and the ram hit the band, the old seals sang like a struck bowl. The notes ran down into the long store and up into the bell frame. The bell answered with three tones. The city heard. The city tightened. The Lotus Flame on the platform lifted her head and did not open her eyes.
"Hold," Selina said into the horn line.
"Hold," Tarek said.
"Hold," Kael whispered against the stone.
The band did not break. The machine stuttered. The handlers pulled the creatures back before they tore their own legs. The command voice went flat and quiet. "Reset," it said. "We try again at moonrise."
The city did not answer out loud. It answered with the slow bright line of the seam widening another hair. On the other side of that hair, a street took its first breath in a hundred years and laid its dust down where it belonged.
Kael felt Mira's pulse shift and settle. He did not move his hand. He closed his eyes and let the mountain carry his count. He did not ask the night to be shorter. He gave it his weight and let it stand on both feet.
In the quiet between the machine's failure and the next order, Elder Han stood at the window slit, watched the ridge, and spoke one sentence under her breath to the city and to the woman on the altar and to the two who had carried her out of a small house with a blinking green light.
"We are not alone anymore."