Blood fell from Kael’s palm onto the first red step.
DRIP!
The drop vanished into the stone. A narrow vein brightened beneath his boot and carried the blood toward both edges of the stair.
Kael kept his weight where it was. Behind him, the laughter from Orrek’s bowl died, and all twenty-one protected people watched the empty patch where the blood had disappeared.
Vaela came to his left without stepping onto the red stone. Her white edge remained wrapped, and her burned wrist shook whenever she moved it away from her ribs. "The step absorbed the whole drop. Let me see your foot before you put more weight on it."
Kael lifted his heel by the width of a finger. The vein beneath him dimmed. When he lowered it again, the light returned and moved farther down.
"It is following more than the blood," he said. "The vein brightens when my weight settles."
Renn crouched beside the stairhead and covered a cough with the count cloth. "Can it reach the rest of us from the same step?"
"We will find out before anyone follows me. Keep the twenty-one above the mark until I call you."
Orrek gathered the nearest survivors with his uninjured arm. His shoulder had swollen beneath the torn wrapping, leaving the joint thick and hard against his neck. "Take the time you need. Half of us need help standing, and the other half have learned to distrust stairs."
Jaro wiped sweat from his mouth and examined the red stone. "Old crews used these descents for sealed transfers. I never saw one working, but the stories always mentioned teeth beneath the steps."
Vaela touched the flat of her wrapped blade to the outer edge. "I need the part the workers trusted, Jaro. Show me where someone could place a tool without losing the hand holding it."
Jaro pointed to a dull strip near the wall. "The carts left marks there. People probably walked near the middle, unless the builders wanted the carts to survive longer than the prisoners."
Kael studied the dull strip, the seams beside it, and the twenty-one people waiting behind him. The stair had to reveal its attack before he risked another body, so he pressed harder with his boot.
THUD!
Red seams opened along both sides of the step. Tiny hooks turned toward the mud on his heel, the blood drying at his ankle, and the deepest part of his footprint. Threat Perception Instinct caught the pressure gathering beneath them before they moved.
Kael shifted his foot toward the center.
CLACK!
Stone teeth snapped shut where his heel had been. Their edges ground together and chipped red dust across the stair.
GRIND!
Vaela watched the broken dust fall between the seams. "The hooks wait for the weight to settle, and the teeth close where the step expects the ankle. Change your footing before each pulse."
Kael stepped down with the outside of his foot and turned his hip before the stone could copy the position. Heat rose through his sole. The second step opened one seam near his toes and another behind his heel, trying to trap both directions at once.
He drove his heel through the weaker edge.
CRACK!
The step split. Clear red fluid leaked from the fracture and crept away from Vaela’s white edge when she lowered the wrapped metal near it.
Jaro leaned closer but kept both hands behind his back. "The upper route used a cloudy fluid, but this runs clear and the stonework is older. The stair may have been here before the furnace yards were built above it."
Kael looked down the long descent. Faint carvings ran beneath the clear fluid: broad feet, clawed prints, narrow sandals, and wheel tracks worn by loads much larger than the workers’ carts. The stair belonged to an older road, but the white rooms had filled its seams with their own hooks and lenses.
Renn touched the first two survivors and checked the line behind them. "We cannot remain beside the Crown’s remains. If this is the only open passage, we need a way to bring everyone down without feeding it twenty-one clean steps."
"Use the cart strip," Vaela said. "Pairs move only after Kael breaks the next seam. Change which foot leads, and keep every hand away from the edges."
Orrek lowered his chain along the safe strip and wrapped the upper end around his waist. "The weakest can hold the links instead of the wall. I will take the pull through my hips, although somebody else needs to watch the shoulder."
Vaela moved behind him and adjusted the chain below the injured joint. "Keep the elbow against your ribs. I will tell you when the load begins climbing toward the tear."
Kael took the third step.
It sank beneath him and pulled his balance in four directions. His right hand opened on instinct, ready to catch the wall.
The stair reacted before he touched anything.
SPLIT!
A coin-wide slit opened in the wall. Polished stone surrounded a wet lens that turned toward his hand. A cold line passed beneath his skin, tracing his swollen knuckles, torn palm, strained tendons, and every place the Protocol Crown had cut him.
Vaela raised her blade. Kael stopped her with his other forearm.
"Keep the lens open," he said. "I need to know what makes it move."
"Your hand is bleeding into the lens. Show me if the cold reaches your wrist, and I cut it."
Kael opened and closed his fingers. The lens followed each movement. When he shifted his shoulder without moving the hand, it stayed fixed on the knuckles.
The cold pressure tightened around his grip. The Sovereign Root answered where only Kael could see it, and one shard opened behind his thoughts. He sent it into Threat Perception Instinct.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Red Stair Intake Seams
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +1
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +1 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Threat Perception Instinct -> 30
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Intake Anticipation Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The new point sharpened the warning behind Kael’s eyes. Pressure gathered in hidden slits before the lenses opened, and hooks shifted beneath the steps a breath before their teeth rose. Most of the stair reacted to weight and blood. Every deeper pulse still returned to his right hand.
Kael held that hand away from his body and moved it toward the wall.
Six hidden lenses opened along the descent.
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
Each one turned toward his fingers. The steps beneath Renn and Vaela remained quiet, even when they shifted their weight above the stairhead.
"It chose your hand," Renn said. His voice came rough, but the meaning was clear. "The Crown watched you break it, and this passage is looking for the part that held the metal."
Kael closed his fist. The lenses narrowed while the seams beneath him filled with red light.
Vaela studied the nearest opening. "Keep the hand where they can see it while the others descend. Their attention may stay on you long enough for us to move the injured."
The plan placed Kael closest to every blade inside the walls. Renn looked at his bleeding hand before bringing Dorran and Sova forward, while Orrek lowered his chain and Vaela controlled the pace.
Dorran’s numb fingers slipped on the links. Sova caught his wrist before he fell, changed her grip, and guided his hand around a lower piece of chain. The nearest lens started to turn toward them.
Kael struck the wall beside his right hand.
BANG!
All six lenses snapped back to him. Dorran and Sova reached the next safe strip before the stair recovered.
The other pairs followed. Renn counted every person at each landing. Orrek carried the shared pull through his waist, breathing through the pain whenever the chain tugged his shoulder. Vaela kept her blade near the red seams and called out each pressure shift before the teeth closed.
Kael moved last beside them, offering his right hand to every lens and breaking any step that reached for another body. Blood continued to fall from his palm. Each drop entered the stair and lit more veins below.
Near the fourth landing, five thin lines burned into the stone beneath his boot. They formed the shape of spread fingers around a dark circle.
The mark turned until its fingertips pointed at his right hand.
Orrek saw it while helping the older woman onto the landing. "The whole stair has spent this much effort studying one hand. I hope it understands how angry the rest of you will become if it takes it."
Kael flexed his fingers. The nearest hooks rose from the walls and angled toward the tendons in his wrist.
"It thinks my violence begins here," he said. "Keep moving. It is following my palm, not your feet."
The twenty-one descended through the older road. Scratches from carts, chains, bare feet, clawed travelers, and unfamiliar small sandals appeared beneath the fluid added by the white rooms. Kael could not name the peoples who had crossed before the pits existed, but their worn tracks proved the world beneath Furnace Sink Nine had never belonged to one prison.
A survivor near the rear began shaking. The woman beside her took hold of her waist and kept speaking into her ear, although Kael could not hear the words over the stone. The step beneath them opened a narrow seam and pulled at the tremor in the first woman’s leg. Kael caught the warning, stamped through the edge, and broke the hooks before they reached her ankle.
CRACK!
She reached the next landing supported by two others. Renn counted her with his fingers and found all twenty-one still moving.
At the bottom, pale instruments unfolded from alcoves on both walls. They had narrow blades, tendon hooks, and jointed clamps built to close around a human hand.
Every instrument turned toward Kael’s grip.