Kael's breath hitched beside her. "Astra."
Astra didn't answer. Her mouth was dry. Her skin crawled.
The scan didn't just read the collar.
It read her seeing.
Meros's polite expression shifted into something more intent. "Fascinating."
Silex's eyes narrowed. "Immediate acquisition remains recommended."
Meros held up a hand. "One step at a time."
The scan light narrowed.
Astra's throat burned as if the seal was turning her inside out.
Then the projection flashed a new line in the air—visible to everyone in the room.
ANOMALY INTERFACE ACCESS: UNIQUEPERMISSIONS: WRITE (SELF) — ENABLEDTRACE: 75% (CRITICAL APPROACH)PATCHES: DELAY LOOP / GHOST COMMAND (INSTALLED)WARNING: INTERNAL STABILIZER VOW PRESENT
Orin swore softly.
Juno's eyes widened.
Kael went very still.
Lyra's smile returned—bright and hungry.
Meros's voice softened, almost reverent. "You built an internal stabilizer clause."
Astra's eyes stayed hard. "I had to."
Meros's gaze slid to Kael. "With collateral pressure."
Kael's jaw flexed. He didn't deny it.
Silex stepped closer again, like the words had given him permission. "Hazard has self-governor capability. That is unlicensed."
Astra's collar tightened in irritation, as if offended to be called unlicensed.
Meros's tone remained polite. "Subject, you have created a new governance structure inside a Dominion collar. That is… unprecedented."
Astra's throat burned. "It was survival."
Meros nodded, like a teacher praising a student. "And now it must be controlled."
Astra felt it then—the pivot.
This wasn't evaluation anymore.
This was acquisition dressed as paperwork.
Silex's hand lifted slightly. Not toward her collar. Toward his own throat crest.
A command-ready posture.
Kael's voice dropped, dangerous. "Don't."
Silex looked at him for the first time with something like mild interest. "Collateral threatens enforcement."
Kael's eyes burned. "Try to take her."
Silex's mouth didn't move. "Gladly."
Meros sighed again. "Warden—"
Too late.
Silex spoke a single word, flat and absolute.
"Contain."
The air tightened.
Not like Lumen pressure. Not like Dorian's silk.
This was Guild geometry—clean and brutal, a grid turning into a cage.
Lines of pale light snapped into existence across the room, forming a rectangular lattice around Astra.
Not touching her.
Not harming her.
Just telling the world where her body was allowed to be.
Astra's interface screamed.
GUILD CONTAINMENT GRID: ACTIVEBODY CONTROL: RESTRICTEDWARNING: AUTO-COMPLIANCE RISK
Her feet tried to still.
Her shoulders tried to lower.
Her collar pulsed in relieved submission—finally, a rule it could obey without thinking.
Astra forced her breath in.
Kael's voice cut low at her ear—fierce, intimate, chosen. "Astra—look at me."
Astra met his eyes.
His gaze was a wall.
Her stabilizer vow tightened like a fist.
She didn't move.
She didn't surrender.
She held.
Silex's eyes narrowed. "Resistance."
Meros's polite smile returned, thin now. "Subject, do not make this worse."
Astra's mouth curved, bloody and defiant. "You already did."
Orin moved in the background—silent, fast—hands on his scar-sigil. Juno shifted, wire disk ready.
Lyra watched like a cat watching a bird cage.
"Astra," Lyra murmured, "if you break their grid, they'll mark you hostile."
Astra didn't look away from Kael. "I'm already hostile."
Lyra's smile sharpened. "No. You're expensive."
Astra's heat flared again—anger, jealousy, desire to bite—and she used it like fuel.
She couldn't break the grid by force. Not with trace this high. Not without triggering audit lock.
But she could exploit timing.
Delay Loop had given her hinges before.
Ghost Command was installed, and the slot was empty.
Empty meant ready.
Astra opened the patch panel in her mind.
GHOST COMMAND: READY TO STORE (ONE SLOT)COST: TRACE + PAIN
Kael's eyes narrowed slightly, reading her focus. "Astra—don't spike."
Astra's breath warmed his jaw as she leaned in half an inch—close enough to feel his restraint tremble. "I need a knife," she whispered. "Six seconds won't do it."
Kael's throat worked.
Then he nodded once—consent, grim and chosen. "Clean. One."
Astra didn't smile. She stored a command like loading a pistol.
STORE COMMAND: IF GUILD CONTAINMENT RESTRICTS BODY → RELEASE BODY CONTROL FOR ONE MOTION (STEP) WHEN I SAY "NOW."
A step.
One motion.
Not a fight.
A seam.
Pain sparked through Astra's nerves. Trace ticked higher.
TRACE: 76.1%
Meros's eyes sharpened. "You just wrote."
Astra didn't blink. "I breathed."
Meros's smile tightened. He knew she was lying. The seal knew too.
Silex's gaze hardened. "Hostile."
Kael's jaw clenched. His body wanted to move and refused because any lunge would become a justification.
Orin made a tiny gesture in the corner of Astra's vision—two fingers, a sharp point.
A back seam had opened behind a hanging cloth panel—just a crack.
One step would get Astra into it.
One step would break the grid's clean capture.
Astra needed the step at the exact moment the grid's lattice flickered—when Juno's interference hit.
Juno met Astra's gaze across the room and gave the smallest nod.
Then she threw a disk.
It skittered low and fast, humming as it slid under the glowing lattice. The disk didn't "jam" the grid.
It dirty-lit it—introducing noise, a brief stutter where a line of light hesitated, unsure.
The cage didn't collapse.
But one corner softened for a heartbeat.
Astra's collar pulsed, confused.
Meros's head snapped toward the disk. "What—"
Astra whispered, barely moving her lips.
"Now."
The stored Ghost Command released.
Her body didn't explode into freedom.
It got exactly one clean motion back.
Astra took the step—hard, precise—into the crack Orin had opened.
Stone swallowed her shoulder.
The grid's light snapped, trying to correct.
Silex's eyes flared. "Seize—"
Kael moved.
Not at Astra.
At the attendant's slate.
He didn't strike the attendant. He struck the slate casing with the edge of his palm—clean, brutal.
The slate's glow stuttered.
Recording faltered.
Meros's polite composure cracked into anger. "Warden—"
Silex lunged—fast, precise—hand reaching toward Kael's wrist crest, not to hurt him, but to bind him.
Kael twisted away, jaw locked, breath controlled, refusing to give a clean grip.
Orin shoved Juno through the seam behind Astra.
Lyra hesitated—watching the chaos like she was calculating.
Astra's throat burned with the seal's hum, urgent now, hungry for "hostile flight" justification.
Her interface flared.
AUDIT LOCK: ESCALATINGHOSTILE STATUS: NEARSEAL BROADCAST: PREPARING
Astra's one step was spent.
The grid would reassert.
She needed a second hinge.
Delay Loop could buy it.
But touching the collar would spike pain and trace—and the seal might interpret it as hostile.
She didn't have a clean option.
So she chose a dirty one.
Astra turned her head in the seam just enough to see Kael through the crack.
His eyes were dark, furious, alive—fighting Silex's binding hand with pure discipline.
Astra lifted her voice—clear, sharp, and structured like law.
"Kael Raithe," she said, "if you are bound, you will prioritize breaking the Guild's recording before anything else."
Kael's eyes snapped to her.
He understood.
He didn't argue.
He pivoted and drove his shoulder into Silex—not a tackle, a displacement—just enough to break the man's line to Astra and force him to protect his own crest.
Then Kael seized the attendant's slate with both hands and snapped it in half.
The sound was ugly and satisfying.
Meros's face went white with rage.
Silex's eyes went flat, murderous. "Hostile confirmed."
The Guild seal on Astra's throat vibrated violently, excited by the clean classification.
Astra's interface screamed.
HOSTILE STATUS: TRIGGEREDSEAL BROADCAST: INITIATINGCOUNTDOWN: 00:00:03
Three seconds until the Guild screamed her location to every clean network node.
Orin's hand yanked Astra deeper into the seam. "Move!"
Astra's legs tried to obey, but the grid still had her ankles in its math.
Kael's gaze locked on Astra through the crack—hard, furious, desperate.
He wanted to reach for her.
He didn't.
Voice only.
Kael's voice cut through the chaos, sharp as a command written as care. "Astra—breathe. Don't let it take your body."
Astra breathed.
Her stabilizer vow held.
But the seal didn't care about vows.
It cared about broadcasting.
She had one thing left that could delay consequence.
Delay Loop.
Astra touched the collar.
Pain promised.
But she didn't want the pain.
She wanted the gap.
The interface flashed.
PUNISHMENT DELAY: 6.0s (ACTIVE)
The seal's broadcast stuttered—caught in the same twisted mercy mechanism that delayed her suffering.
COUNTDOWN: 03…02…
Six seconds.
A hinge made of blood.
Orin dragged her deeper. Juno shoved past. Lyra finally slipped in at the last second, eyes bright, mouth curved in a too-calm smile.
Behind them, the seam began to close.
Meros's voice hit the crack, cold and furious. "Warden—lock them."
Silex's hand flashed toward the closing seam, crest flaring.
Kael surged—throwing himself between Silex's hand and the stone, taking the binding geometry across his own shoulder like a man choosing where the blade lands.
His body jerked.
A strangled breath.
But he stayed upright.
He met Astra's gaze through the narrowing crack, jaw clenched.
Astra's chest tightened with heat and horror.
She wanted to scream his name.
She didn't.
She used the seconds to hold his eyes like a promise.
The seam closed.
Stone swallowed sound.
And Astra's interface finished the delayed countdown in cold white numbers as her borrowed time bled away—
…01…00.