The sheet of black and white material remained stretched across the chamber. It was thin enough for Kael to see a body moving behind it, yet the surface gave no sign of a hinge or opening.
Fourteen survivors waited behind him with their hands locked around one another’s wrists. The count cloth was gone, so Renn moved along the line and touched every pulse himself. His damaged throat made each breath rough, but he did not hurry the count.
Vaela crouched where the sheet met the floor. The broken white edge from the previous chamber remained wrapped at her hip, safely covered and within reach. She pressed a knife against the floor joint, tested three places, and sat back on her heels.
"I cannot find a seam to cut. The material has grown into the stone, or the chamber formed around it."
Orrek shifted the chain away from his injured shoulder. "We have met doors without hinges before, although most of them had the decency to look like doors."
Jaro kept several paces between himself and the living chain. "The white rooms make barriers like this when they need time. Whatever is behind it is still being assembled."
Renn finished checking the last wrist and returned to the front. "How much time does it need?"
Jaro watched the surface draw inward. "The crews who saw one begin did not stay nearby long enough to find out."
The surface drew inward as though something behind it had taken a breath.
HUM!
Cold air slipped around Kael and traveled along both walls. It reached the rear of the group before anyone could move. The woman with furnace scars across her cheek arched backward, while the boy beside her clutched at an old burn beneath his collar.
GASP!
Tavin caught the boy before his knees struck the floor. Dorran braced Tavin from behind, and the rest of the chain tightened without breaking.
"Keep hold of him," Renn said as he pushed through the line. "Stay connected, even if an old wound starts hurting."
The warning came too late for several of them. Pale rings appeared around healed burns, cuts, and punctures. None of those injuries had been made in this chamber. Each one marked a moment when its owner had watched Kael destroy part of the crown-scar structure.
The furnace-scarred woman clawed at her cheek. Tears ran from both eyes, and her next breath stopped halfway into her chest. Two more survivors bent over as their scars tightened against muscle and bone.
Kael felt the cold air pull at his own memories. It searched for the instant he had chosen to protect them, found resistance, and became hostile.
The Sovereign Root opened inside him.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ HOSTILE COUNTERMEASURE PRESSURE DETECTED: Witness Wound Extraction
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +1
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▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
The shard settled behind his thoughts and waited for his decision. Kael could feel the sheet pulling harder at the group, trying to use every remembered wound as a path into the mind that carried it.
The single shard could not protect every wounded body, so Kael drove it into Mind Soul Anchor. His mind gained enough weight to hold the shared memory without letting the sheet tear through it.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +1 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Mind Soul Anchor -> 27
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Witness-wound pressure interference stabilized.
====================================================================
No light crossed his skin. His thoughts simply stopped shifting beneath the pull.
The change passed through every wrist he was holding. The boy dragged in a wet breath, and the furnace-scarred woman steadied him with both arms. Other bodies straightened one by one as their old injuries stopped drawing them toward the sheet.
Renn checked the line again, wincing each time his throat scraped around a breath. "Everyone is still here. I have fourteen pulses, although several people need you."
Vaela was already moving toward the worst of them. "Keep their hands joined while I check who can still walk."
Orrek gave the boy a tired grin. "You heard her. Stay where the difficult healer can reach you."
Shallow dents appeared across the sheet. Fourteen resembled blurred faces, while a larger unfinished shape pressed outward in front of Kael.
Jaro backed away from it. "The chamber can feel the connection between you. It knows Kael is holding the others steady."
Vaela moved closer without touching the surface. "It is not taking their lives first. It wants the memory attached to those scars, and it wants every survivor to remember the same clean version."
Renn swallowed carefully. "Can we stop it from learning?"
"Give it something useless," Vaela said. "Think about the rot bowl, the bad soup, or anything else you remember differently from the person beside you."
The older survivor near Tavin began talking about a cracked bowl. Someone farther back insisted the bowl had never cracked because Orrek had dropped a different one. The boy remembered teeth in the soup, and a frightened laugh moved through the line when Orrek complained that the group never respected his cooking.
The dents trembled and lost their shape. The survivors still shared the same escape, but fear, pain, hunger, and small disagreements had left each person with a different memory of it. The sheet could not press those memories into one account without tearing them apart.
Its next breath struck harder.
HUM!
A seam opened in the wall behind the survivors. White cords slid from it, each tipped with a hook no larger than a fingernail. The hooks turned toward old burns instead of exposed throats.
Renn saw them first. "Cords behind us!"
Orrek planted his sound foot and turned from the hips because his shoulder could not bear a full swing. His forearm struck the first cluster before it reached the boy.
CRACK!
Several cords bent around his arm. They tightened at once and dragged him toward the wall, opening the skin beneath his wraps.
RIP!
Blood ran to his elbow. The Root offered Kael nothing because Orrek was taking the pressure, and Kael understood the danger at once. The chamber had stopped testing him first and begun attacking the people beside him.
Kael stepped back. The unfinished face followed his movement, and every cord changed direction to preserve the shape around him.
"Watch Vaela’s hands," he told the survivors. "Move when she signals, not when I speak."
Vaela raised two fingers toward the left. Kael ordered the group left, and fourteen bodies lurched right with Renn guiding the middle. Orrek shoved the captured cords in the opposite direction.
The hooks crossed and scraped against one another.
SCRAPE! SCRAPE!
Kael seized the crossed cords and pulled them across his chest. Two hooks bit into his old collar wound, but Mind Soul Anchor kept the pain from carrying the sheet’s pull into his thoughts. He twisted both cords around his fist and drove them into the barrier.
THUD!
The sheet rippled from floor to ceiling. Its fourteen faces blurred.
Vaela kept her hand raised. "The cords are still moving, so give it another strike before they separate."
Kael slammed them forward again.
THUD!
The lower edge lifted from the stone by the width of a finger. It did not open, although black fluid seeped from the damaged place and gathered around Kael’s boots.
The body behind the sheet inhaled. Its anger reached the chamber as a low vibration.
HUM!
Renn leaned against the boy for a moment while he checked the count. Air dragged over his wounded throat.
WHEEZE!
The boy held Renn’s wrist in return. "Your bleeding has started again, and it has reached your chest."
Renn glanced down without releasing him. "You are right. Keep your hand here while I slow the count."
Vaela bound Orrek’s arm and listened to the boy’s breathing. "Keep talking if it helps you breathe, but leave enough air for walking."
Orrek watched her tighten the cloth around his forearm. "I have spent years preparing useless conversation for a moment like this. We can discuss every terrible meal I have ever cooked."
Jaro almost laughed, but he covered his mouth when the nearest face turned toward him. "Change the subject before you repeat a story. The chamber can follow a pattern even when the pattern is foolish."
Orrek shifted the chain across his sound side. "We will begin with shoes, because mine are wet and I blame the architecture."
The loose conversation disturbed the faces again. Voices shook, details contradicted one another, and several sentences ended when pain stole the speaker’s breath. Their fear belonged to fourteen separate people rather than one pattern the chamber could seize.
A final cord lowered from the ceiling. A drop of black and white fluid formed at its tip and fell between Kael’s boots.
DRIP!
The fluid spread across the floor in a small map. Fourteen marks formed behind a larger center mark, with thin branches showing where each survivor stood and whom Kael had protected.
Vaela saw the pattern before it finished. "It is drawing the line so the body behind the sheet can attack the right places."
Kael ground his heel through the map.
SCRAPE!
The stain tried to flow around his boot and rebuild itself. Mind Soul Anchor denied it the memory it needed, leaving only a dark smear across the stone. The Sovereign Root remained silent because he had earned no further pressure and spent no further shard.
Both hands of the unfinished body pressed against the far side of the sheet. Jointed fingers spread wide, and the damaged surface peeled away from its face just enough for air to enter.
Kael lowered his center of weight. Vaela pulled the survivors into a tighter curve, Orrek gathered his blood-slick chain, and Renn secured the fourteenth wrist.
The thing behind the sheet took its first complete breath.