Astra tasted blood and smoke and something dangerously like pride.
She'd just anchored him without touching her throat.
She'd just used his obedience against the man who owned the word obedience.
Orin's voice hissed from the shadows behind the plaza's edge. "Astra—move. Now."
Juno's wire disks were already in her fingers, ready to throw.
But Astra didn't move yet.
Because she saw Seraphine's expression.
Not confusion.
Decision.
Seraphine stepped one pace closer, voice smooth as doctrine. "Marquis Veyrn," she said to the air, not to a visible man, "you are misusing sacred containment."
Dorian's whisper in Astra's nerves turned amused. "Sister-Matriarch. Welcome to politics."
Seraphine lifted her hand, tracing a sunburst sign in the air.
The plaza's lanternlight bent. A pale net of sanctified code spread outward—clean, clinical, hungry.
Astra's collar tightened, alarmed.
Her interface flared.
LUMEN WARD NET: ACTIVETAG ATTEMPT: OVERRIDE MASKWARNING: NULL ANCHOR UNDER PRESSURE
Astra's stomach dropped.
Seraphine wasn't negotiating.
She was revoking—by force, by faith, by sheer authority.
Rusk's eyes narrowed. "Sister-Matriarch—"
Seraphine didn't look at him. "Hold your men," she said softly. "Or I will."
Rusk stiffened—his crest reacting to her tone like it recognized a higher, older law.
Dorian's whisper turned colder. "Careful, Seraphine. You push too hard, you break my prototype."
Seraphine smiled. "Then don't pull so hard."
And she did something Astra hadn't expected.
Seraphine didn't aim her net at Astra's collar.
She aimed it at the link.
At Kael.
Astra's interface screamed.
SANCTIFIED SEVERANCE: TARGETING ANCHOR COLLATERALWARNING: PAIN TRANSFER POSSIBLEANCHOR RECALL: CONFLICTING FORCES
Kael's body jolted, breath stuttering. His wrist crest flared, then dimmed, like it was being pinched between two gods.
Astra's chest went tight with panic and fury.
Dorian was pulling.
Seraphine was cutting.
And Kael was the rope in between.
Astra turned her head slightly toward the carriage, toward the silk-scented authority she couldn't see but could feel like fingertips behind her eyes.
"Dorian," she said aloud for the first time, letting the plaza hear that she was speaking to her owner.
Seraphine's gaze snapped to Astra's mouth, interested.
Rusk's expression sharpened, disgust and fear mixed.
Kael's eyes flicked to Astra—warning.
Astra ignored the warning.
She made a choice.
"If you pull him through me," Astra said, voice low and steady, "she'll cut him out of your leash."
Dorian's laugh inside her nerves was soft and vicious. "You think I care."
Astra smiled without warmth. "I think you hate losing clean data."
A beat.
A subtle tightening in the collar, like Dorian's attention sharpened.
Astra pressed the blade deeper.
"You called him your Hound," Astra murmured. "But you didn't build him. You just leash him. If she severs him here, you don't get him back intact."
Seraphine's smile widened slightly, as if pleased Astra understood the game.
Rusk's jaw clenched. "Enough."
Kael's voice came low, rough. "Astra. Stop."
Astra didn't stop.
Because she felt the sanctified severance biting deeper into Kael's crest, and she refused to watch him be torn apart because she'd needed a hinge.
Astra's interface flickered—Write(Self) open like a bleeding door.
WRITE (SELF): ENABLEDWARNING: TRACE CRITICAL SOON
Trace already above fifty. Another write would spike her into a range she didn't understand yet—ranges that got you audited, revised, erased.
But there were worse things than being seen.
There was letting them take him because she'd been too careful.
Astra chose her target with shaking precision:
ANCHOR LINK RESPONSE (SELF)
She wrote one line, conditional, desperate, brutal:
IF SANCTIFIED SEVERANCE TARGETS ANCHOR → ROUTE PAIN TO SELF UNTIL SEVERANCE ENDS
Pain partition, but uglier. Not storage. Not delay.
Astra volunteered to take the cut.
The system did not reward her.
It punished her immediately.
Pain tore through her nerves like a bright wire dragged under skin. Astra's vision went white. Her knees buckled.
Kael caught her—arm around her ribs, holding her up before she hit stone.
He didn't touch her collar.
He didn't need to.
His body shielded her anyway.
Astra gasped, teeth clenched, tasting blood. The interface stuttered.
WRITE (SELF): COMMITTEDTRACE: 56.9%WATERMARK: VIOLENTPAIN ROUTE: ACTIVEANCHOR: STABILIZING
Kael's wrist crest dimmed slightly—his governor load easing.
Seraphine's eyes narrowed sharply.
Because she felt it.
She felt her severance bite meet resistance—not in Kael, but in Astra.
Seraphine took one more step forward, voice soft and terrible. "You'll bleed for him."
Astra swallowed a scream and smiled through it. "I'll bleed for myself," she rasped. "He's just… inconveniently inside the math."
Kael's eyes burned. "Astra—"
Astra's hand fumbled for his sleeve, fingers curling in fabric. "Stay… upright."
Kael's jaw clenched. He obeyed, holding himself steady, holding her steady.
Orin hissed from the shadows again, urgent. "NOW, Astra!"
Juno's disk flashed in the corner of Astra's vision—thrown low, skittering across stone toward the carriage lantern.
It hummed.
Then the lanternlight stuttered, smoke blooming, shadows twisting.
The plaza's clean geometry broke.
For half a second, masters lost sight of their pieces.
Astra used the half-second.
She leaned into Kael's chest, close enough to feel his heartbeat, and spoke into the space only he could hear.
"Kael," she whispered, breath shaking with pain, "if I say run, you run. Even if the leash screams."
Kael's voice was rough. "No."
Astra's mouth curved, grim. "Consent, remember? You don't get to save me by dying."
Kael went still.
Then he nodded once—small, furious agreement.
Seraphine's voice cut through the smoke, bright as doctrine. "Seize them."
Rusk's shout followed. "Hounds—move!"
Boots surged.
Astra's interface flickered wildly—pain route active, trace climbing, anchor link under pressure.
And then, through the smoke, the carriage door swung fully open.
Dorian stepped out.
Elegant. Calm. Too polite for the violence in his eyes.
He looked at Astra like she was a document he'd been revising for months.
He looked at Kael like he was a weapon someone else had dared to touch.
Dorian smiled.
"Astra," he said aloud, voice warm enough to make skin crawl, "you brought me a complication."
Seraphine's smile sharpened. "A complication is still a subject."
Rusk's eyes narrowed at Dorian's arrival, suspicion cutting through duty. "My lord."
Kael's body stiffened.
The leash recognized Dorian the way a bruise recognized pressure.
Astra's collar tightened in pleasure and hate.
Dorian stepped closer—slow, confident—until he was within arm's reach of Astra's throat.
He didn't touch.
He waited.
Like he enjoyed watching her choose whether to flinch.
Astra forced herself to lift her chin.
Dorian's gaze flicked to Kael's hand around Astra's ribs, to the way Kael held her up without owning her.
Amusement sparkled.
Then Dorian turned his eyes to Kael, and his smile became a blade.
"Kael," Dorian said softly, "kneel."
Kael's body jolted.
The leash surged.
Astra's interface screamed.
OWNER COMMAND: KNEEL (ANCHOR)VECTOR: COLLAR LINKOVERRIDE: HIGHWARNING: ANCHOR COLLAPSE IMMINENT
Astra's pain route flared brighter—hotter—stealing the severance bite, but this wasn't severance.
This was ownership.
Kael's knee began to bend, inch by brutal inch.
Kael's jaw clenched, eyes dark with fury and shame.
Astra's breath shook.
She couldn't write him free.
She couldn't touch her collar without giving Dorian a better handle.
She had one weapon left.
Kael's voice.
Astra leaned close to Kael's ear, pain making her voice ragged, and whispered a conditional command like a prayer made of law:
"If you kneel," Astra breathed, "kneel only to protect me—then stand the moment I'm safe."
Kael's eyes snapped to hers.
For a heartbeat, he was not a weapon.
He was a man choosing.
His knee touched stone.
The leash purred in satisfaction.
Dorian's smile widened.
Seraphine's eyes gleamed.
And Astra's collar—caught between sanctity, silk, and the brutal math of its own new clause—flashed a single line that made Astra's blood turn to ice:
TRANSFER OFFER DETECTED — LUMEN CLAIM FILED ON ANCHOR COLLATERAL.