The fourth heartbeat under the three-heart chamber stopped being a rumor at dawn, because it climbed out of the floor.
The vault door had not opened, because there was no vault door anymore.
Only a seam in the chamber's lowest stone had widened overnight into a mouth.
The thing that came up through it arrived in three pieces at once, north, river, plus sky.
Each piece stood twenty paces tall in its own chamber, anchored beneath its own district.
Each piece was also the same piece, because the enemy had read one distributed man plus answered with a distribution of its own.
The war table received Aria's classification in the silence of people watching weather arrive.
[ Hostile Classification: Split Custodian ]
[ Defense Body Of The Three-Heart Engine, Pre-Foundational ]
[ Sections: 3, Shard-Class 20 Each ]
[ Shared Core: Mobile Between Sections ]
