Vaela watched the floor while the Judge studied her from its raised platform. Its beautiful face did not belong in the cracked chamber, and every survivor who stared too long began leaning toward it.
A low vibration passed through the stone beneath their feet.
HUM!
Renn moved along the half-ring of survivors, touching one bare palm after another until every person remained connected. Orrek kept his chain stretched across the open space in front of them, while Jaro crouched near Vaela and tried very hard not to look above her shoulder.
Something pale gathered beside Kael’s boot. A bead of thick oil pushed through a crack and struck the floor.
DRIP!
The sound returned from beneath the Judge’s platform. Kael shifted toward it, but Vaela raised two fingers. Something had moved inside the nearest scar mirror.
The mirror still held a copy of Kael’s shoulder smashing through the Quarantine Crown. A narrow white filament had appeared inside the image, pressed flat against the reflected wound. It slipped over the mirror’s lower rim, crossed the floor like wet thread, and vanished beneath the black platform supporting the Judge.
A second filament crept from the print beside Kael’s heel and curled through the space between Renn’s moving palms without touching him.
Renn stopped beside the furnace-scar woman. "Something is following my count. I can feel it tightening whenever I reach another person."
"Keep moving, but slow your hands," Vaela said. "I need to see whether it follows you or the order of the count."
His mouth went dry, yet he continued to the boy beside her. "You heard her. Give me your hand, and please do not choose this moment to become shy."
The boy grabbed him at once. The white filament slid after Renn and ignored the child.
"It wants the count," Jaro murmured. He rubbed his wrapped palms against his knees, leaving small red marks on the cloth. "Whatever happens to him will reach everyone he has joined."
Orrek stepped between Renn and the pale shapes near the wall. "Finish looking before one of those empty things decides it likes my face. I already have enough trouble carrying the original."
Vaela took the damaged white edge from its wrapping. Chips marked both sides of the thin blade, and dried blood filled the crack near its tip. She held it close to the floor until a faint heat moved through the handle.
HISS!
The nearest filament pulled away. The one running from Kael’s copied shoulder to the platform did not move at all.
Vaela lowered the edge toward the first line, and Jaro caught his breath. She stopped before touching it.
"I am not cutting yet," she said. "The frightened line wants us to notice it. I need the one that believes it is safe."
Jaro watched the unmoving thread. "I would have cut the bright one and killed us quickly, so please keep every medical blade away from me."
Vaela kept her attention on the floor. "Watch the dark thread and warn me if it moves. Your hands can stay where they are."
Kael stepped between her and the Judge. The backward footprints from the previous chamber dragged themselves after him, each shallow print trying to settle beneath his next step.
One reached his ankle.
TAP!
Kael brought his heel down.
CRACK!
The false print collapsed into white grit. No shard came, and the Sovereign Root remained silent. He had broken only a small piece of the trap, but the movement made the hidden filament tighten beneath the platform.
Vaela understood. The chamber had copied Kael’s strike and fastened its memory to the Judge. The other threads were distractions tied around the copied attack.
"The line beneath the platform has stitched his old strike into the Judge," she said. "I can cut it, but the platform will try to replace whatever it loses."
Renn looked at the linked hands behind him. "I can keep the count away from it for a little longer. Everyone must hold on, even if the blanks come close."
Orrek tested the weight of his chain and winced when his ruined shoulder tightened. "Give me something solid to hold. I cannot wrestle a memory, but I can make the platform regret having an underside."
Jaro crawled closer to the mirror, careful to keep his knees between the pale footprints. "The reflection changes whenever Kael moves. I will call the moment it begins copying him again."
Vaela nodded once. "I will cut when Jaro gives the warning. Renn, keep the survivors joined while Orrek holds the platform down, and Kael, keep the line away from my face."
The Judge opened its mouth before she reached the hidden filament. The white line tore free of the floor and lashed toward her eyes.
SWOOSH!
Kael raised his forearm into the filament’s path.
SPLIT!
The filament opened old scabs from his wrist to his elbow, leaving a narrow white groove in the flesh. It tightened at once and pulled his arm toward the angle shown in the mirror, trying to force him through the same movement it had copied before.
The Sovereign Root flared behind his eyes.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE TRIAGE PRESSURE DETECTED: Wrong-Pattern Suture Backlash
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
One shard waited inside him while the line dragged harder. Kael understood the weakness immediately. More strength would let him pull against it, but speed alone was not the problem either. He needed authority over the direction of his own movement.
Velocity Movement Authority.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +1 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Suture-Motion Refusal Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The filament kept cutting, but it could no longer choose his angle. Kael caught it around his palm and pulled before the mirror could follow.
The platform lurched sideways.
CLANG!
"Now," Jaro cried. "The shoulder in the mirror is moving without him!"
Vaela drove the damaged edge into the exposed line where it passed beneath the broken footprint.
SCRAPE!
Red-white fibres opened inside the filament. Blood ran over Vaela’s thumb as the blade shuddered, and each loose strand reached toward Kael’s wound as if searching for a new place to fasten itself.
"Orrek, the feed is under the platform," she said. "Wrap the chain around the lowest bar and keep it from turning."
He dropped to one knee and threw the chain through the narrow gap. His injured shoulder shook when he hauled the links back, but both hands closed and held.
The metal heated against his palms.
HISS!
Orrek swore through his teeth. "I found it. I would like everyone to know it feels worse than it looks."
The furnace-scar woman pulled the boy against her side when the pale blanks surged forward. Renn hurried along the line of survivors, pressing each hand firmly into the next.
"Keep hold of somebody you know," he said. "If one of those shapes reaches you, speak to the person beside you. Do not answer the room, and do not give it your name."
The boy’s breathing broke into a frightened gasp. His mother covered his hand with hers and asked him what he hated most about their last meal.
"The soup," he whispered. "It tasted like burnt rope."
"Mine had a stone in it," the furnace-scar woman said, and the boy looked up in offended surprise.
Jaro stayed near the mirror. "My bowl had nothing in it, which was probably an improvement."
The complaints moved down the linked survivors. Their voices overlapped while the pale blanks hesitated before people who refused to become quiet spaces.
One blank brushed a man’s shoulder. Renn slapped his palm into the man’s waiting hand.
THAP!
The man startled, found Renn’s face, and began complaining about Orrek’s smell. Orrek laughed once despite the chain burning his wraps.
The Judge’s smile failed. A crack exposed layered glass beneath its skin. Tavin looked away, and several survivors straightened once they saw the machinery inside the face.
Vaela pressed deeper with the damaged edge.
SCRAPE!
The scar mirrors flashed through Kael’s victories in the wrong order. The old mouth appeared first, followed by the Quarantine Crown, the Vowroot Enforcer, the gravity press, the Red Stitcher, and the Pale Choir. A final image burned across every mirror for half a heartbeat: a black crown beneath a red sky, waiting in a place Kael had never seen.
The Judge saw it too. Its cracked face went still, and the platform stopped fighting Orrek long enough for Jaro to point at the last white strand.
"It is holding the future image," he said. Fear roughened his voice, but he did not look away. "Cut beside the black mark before it hides the picture again."
Vaela changed the blade’s angle and forced it through.
SNAP!
The white line separated. The copied strike vanished from the mirror, and every loose filament fell dead across the floor.
The platform crashed onto its side.
BOOM!
The impact kicked loose stone beneath the survivors. Orrek released his smoking chain and rolled away before the fallen edge crushed his hands, while Renn kept the human line together.
The Judge remained alive, but the beautiful face split down the centre. A black crown-shaped anchor opened behind it, built from layers of glass teeth that clenched and released around a pulsing red core.
Vaela lowered the white edge. Her hand shook, and fresh blood ran around the old cut in her thumb, but she had exposed what the false face had hidden. Jaro remained beside the mirror, Orrek gathered his hot chain with both injured hands, and Renn counted every survivor again without losing one.
Kael stepped toward the fallen platform. The white groove across his forearm still burned, and the broken hook remained bound inside his left calf, yet neither injury changed where he intended to go.
The anchor was exposed. Whatever waited inside it would have to fight in the open.
"Keep everyone behind me," he said. "I am breaking the part that can still bite."