Astra forced her gaze down to the stone. Don't feed it. Don't look. Don't engage.
Orin stepped forward, hands open, voice casual. "Evening, saints. Lost?"
The cleric's hood tilted. "Underchain movements are under sanctified audit."
Orin smiled. "Everything is under something."
The cleric's gaze slid past Orin, searching the shadows. "We seek the anomalous subject."
Astra's throat tightened. The collar tugged, eager to confess.
Kael's hand tightened on her wrist—warning.
Juno shifted at the edge of the light and flicked her wire disk. It rolled along the stone and came to rest under the cleric's boots.
Nothing happened.
Then the disk hummed—low, ugly—and the cleric's sunburst light stuttered like a candle in wind.
The cleric stiffened. "Interference."
Juno smiled sweetly from the shadows. "Sorry."
Orin moved in the same breath. He didn't attack like a brawler. He moved like a man who knew exactly where a body's certainty lived. His hand snapped to the cleric's wrist crest—two fingers pressing a point—and the cleric's ward sign faltered.
Kael surged forward.
Not at the cleric.
At Astra.
He pivoted, putting his body between Astra and the scanning light, using his uniform, his crest, his very existence as a shield. The collar tugged, confused by the new block.
Astra's interface flashed.
LUMEN SCAN: PARTIALSIGNAL OBSCURED
Obscured.
Good.
The second cleric lunged toward Kael, not with a blade, but with a sunburst brand-stamp—sanctified containment in a handheld form.
Kael caught the man's forearm and twisted. Not enough to break. Enough to disable. His restraint was still there, even now, like he refused to become what the Dominion wanted.
The third cleric stepped back and began to chant. A low, steady doctrine that made Astra's skin prickle.
Seraphine wasn't here, but her methods were.
The tunnel's air brightened.
Astra's collar warmed sharply, as if the sanctified net was a second hand reaching for her throat.
Kael snapped, "Move!"
Orin grabbed Juno's shoulder and yanked her back. "Run."
Astra ran.
She ran because Kael's hand pulled her, because the tunnel allowed it, because her collar hadn't yet decided which authority to worship.
Behind them, the chanting intensified.
Astra's interface flared involuntarily.
TRACE: 29.2%LUMEN MARK: ATTEMPTINGWARNING: SIGNATURE TAG RISK
Tag risk.
If Lumen tagged her, they'd follow her like a scent.
Juno swore under her breath and threw another disk behind them. It clattered, then emitted a brief, harsh hum.
The chant stuttered.
The light flickered.
Orin laughed, breathless. "Nice."
Juno's voice was sharp. "Don't compliment me while we're dying."
They turned hard into a narrower passage. The air got colder. The walls changed—older stone, less brick, as if they'd crossed from city underways into something predating the city itself.
Orin slowed just long enough to press his palm to a scar-sigil. A hidden seam opened, and they slipped through.
The seam closed behind them like a throat swallowing.
Silence fell.
Astra braced for her collar to surge.
Instead, the pull eased by a fraction—as if the stone here didn't accept outside authority easily.
Her interface dimmed.
SIGNAL: LOWRECALL PATH: DEGRADED
Kael released a slow breath.
Then Astra realized how close they were.
Her back pressed to stone. Kael's chest pressed to her front, protective posture in tight space. His hand still held her wrist. His breath warmed her hairline.
Heat flared low, immediate, indecent in the aftermath of fear.
Kael felt it.
He stiffened, then forced himself to loosen—like he was stepping back from a cliff.
Astra tilted her chin just slightly. "You saved me," she murmured.
Kael's voice was rough. "I moved you."
Astra's mouth curved. "That's what saving looks like when you're trying not to admit it."
Kael's jaw flexed. His eyes flicked to her mouth, then back to the tunnel as if the stone itself might judge him for looking.
Astra inhaled, slow.
Consent-as-foreplay was still possible here, even with boots behind walls and doctrine in the air. It lived in the smallest choices.
She lifted her free hand slowly and touched Kael's sleeve—just fabric, just a brush.
"May I," she whispered, not asking to touch his body, but asking to touch the moment.
Kael went still.
Then he nodded once.
Astra slid her fingers up his sleeve to his wrist crest—careful, light. She didn't press. She didn't pry. She simply rested there, feeling the faint tremor under the polished surface.
"You're hurting," she murmured.
Kael's mouth tightened. "Not now."
Astra's gaze held his. "Always."
Something in Kael's eyes cracked—tiny, real.
He lowered his voice. "If we get to the Null Chapel… I may have to sign."
Astra's throat tightened. "Your leash."
Kael's eyes darkened. "Yes."
Astra's fingers curled slightly against his wrist—instinctive, intimate. "And if the Dominion reads it."
Kael's voice went flat. "They'll punish."
Astra's mouth went dry. "They'll kill you."
Kael didn't deny it. His silence was a blade.
Astra's pulse pounded. She wanted to tell him not to. She wanted to demand he do it anyway. She wanted to promise something she couldn't guarantee.
So she did the only thing she could do without lying.
She offered a bargain that was real.
"If you sign," Astra whispered, "I'll make it worth it."
Kael's gaze snapped to her mouth again, stayed there a fraction too long.
His voice turned low. "That's not a currency I accept."
Astra smiled softly. "You already are."
Kael's breath caught. His fingers tightened on her wrist, not painful—anchoring. He leaned in close enough that Astra felt the heat of his words.
"Don't offer what you think will control me," he murmured.
Astra's smile sharpened. "I'm offering what will control me."
Kael froze.
Astra held his gaze. "If you become collateral for my freedom," she said quietly, "then I owe you more than survival. I owe you choice."
For a heartbeat, the tunnel felt too small for what passed between them.
Kael's throat worked. Then he gave a slow, minimal nod—acceptance without romance, consent without softness.
Juno cleared her throat from ahead, dry as sand. "If you two start a poem, I'm leaving."
Orin's voice followed, amused. "Let them. It'll keep them alive."
They moved again.
The passage opened into a longer corridor, and at its end Astra saw it: a carved archway marked with the chapel symbol from the map, old stone etched with something that looked like scripture but wasn't Lumen's sunburst.
Null Chapel.
The air near it felt strange—quiet in a way that made her nerves loosen and tighten at the same time.
Her collar pulsed, confused.
Her interface flickered, then steadied.
ENVIRONMENT: NULL ZONERECALL PATH: WEAKAUDIT: SEARCHING… (NO LOCK)
Orin slowed. "This is the threshold."
Juno's eyes scanned the tunnel behind them. "We're not alone."
A distant echo answered—boots, but not rushing boots.
Measured boots.
And beneath them, a second sound—soft chanting, far away, like Lumen doctrine filtering through stone.
Kael's posture tightened. "They followed."
Orin's smile turned thin. "Of course they did."
Astra swallowed, tasting metal. Dorian was hunting. Seraphine was mapping. The Underchain was charging. Kael's leash was ready to be used as collateral.
The Null Chapel waited like a mouth.
Orin stepped to the archway and held out his hand to Astra, palm open.
Not kind.
Contractual.
"Last chance," he said. "You step in, you owe."
Astra looked at his hand, then at Kael.
Kael's hand tightened on her wrist. His gaze held hers, fierce and steady.
He didn't tell her what to do.
He let her choose.
Astra inhaled once, slow and deliberate, and stepped toward the arch—
—and in her vision, the interface flashed a new line, cold and intimate as a whisper at her throat:
CLAUSE OFFER DETECTED — NULL CHAPEL READY TO WRITE.