The mark remained on Kael’s palm after the group left the red stair. Five pale lines ran from a ring in the center of his hand toward his fingers, and each line tightened whenever he closed his fist.
Renn counted the survivors as they reached the lower landing. His damaged throat forced him to stop for breath between numbers, but he kept going until every person had answered.
Several answered by raising a hand because speaking still hurt too much.
"All twenty-one answered," he said, and the strain eased from his face for one breath.
A small opening appeared in the wall beside his wrist.
CLICK!
A needle slid from the opening and turned toward the skin below his count cloth. Kael caught it before Renn saw the point coming.
SNAP!
The metal broke between Kael’s fingers. Its severed tip dissolved into red vapor and sank into the cuts across his knuckles.
Vaela crossed the landing in two steps. Her burned wrist stayed close to her body while her other hand reached for his. "Open your fingers and keep them still. I need to see where the vapor went."
Kael showed her his palm. A new ring had formed around the old mark, too smooth to be a scar and cold enough to numb the flesh beneath it. The five lines moved a moment after his fingers did.
Orrek leaned on the wall while he studied it. "I have seen debt brands, work brands, and ownership brands, but none of them waited for the hand to move before deciding what had been bought."
Jaro kept his hands behind his back. "The mark is deciding how he uses the hand. I would prefer not to learn what it does once the decision is finished."
Vaela pressed one finger beside the pale ring. Kael felt the touch immediately, but the marked skin answered late. "It is sitting over the nerves instead of joining them. Whatever made this wants to control the movement without becoming part of you."
The landing widened ahead of them. Red stone curved around both sides, and shallow drains crossed the floor toward a door made from overlapping white plates. A hollow shaped like a human hand waited at its center.
Blood from Kael’s palm ran toward the hollow.
A woman near Orrek pulled her sleeve over her fingers. "Are we supposed to put a hand in there?"
Vaela lowered herself beside the first drain and followed its path with the wrapped edge of her blade. "Keep every hand away from the hollow. The door has been waiting for Kael, and the mark is trying to make him fit whatever opens it."
Kael flexed his hand again. The pale lines pulled toward the door.
Three impacts sounded from inside the layered plates.
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
The survivors moved closer together. Orrek shifted in front of the weakest people, although the motion dragged pain through his swollen shoulder.
Pale light gathered inside the hand-shaped hollow. A copy of Kael’s palm rose above it, large enough for everyone to see. Bright threads showed the tendons. Darker lines marked the bones. Every cut and healed fracture from the pit, the gravity press, the Excisors, the Protocol Crown, and the stair appeared across the image.
Renn stared at the old injuries. "The image shows every place his hand survived."
Jaro studied the empty space above the projected wrist, and his voice lost its humor. "The picture ends before the arm and never shows who stood behind him. It knows how the hand moved, but it cannot know why."
The copy opened its fingers. Kael kept his own fist closed.
Cold drove through his wrist.
A survivor behind him jerked against Orrek’s side.
GASP!
The ash-lipped man clutched his hand as the fingers curled against his will. His nails cut into his palm before Orrek caught his arm and forced it against the man’s chest.
Vaela turned from Kael to the survivor. "Hold his wrist straight. Renn, keep him looking at you while I loosen the fingers."
Renn knelt in front of the man. His voice scraped, but he made every word understandable. "You are still here with us. Watch my hand and breathe when I breathe."
Kael faced the door. The mark had used his connection to the group as a path into a weaker body. Heat gathered beneath the pale ring while the survivor struggled behind him.
He raised his marked palm without placing it in the hollow. "This hand belongs to me, and you will not use it to reach anyone behind me."
The door answered with pressure. Cold spread from Kael’s skin into his bones, trying to hold his fist open and make the marked movement feel natural. His own will met it before the Sovereign Root responded.
Metaphysical Resistance. Mind Soul Anchor.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Priority Removal Mark
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +2
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +2 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Metaphysical Resistance -> 43
- Mind Soul Anchor -> 32
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Removal Mark Rejection Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The mark remained on his palm, but three cracks opened across the pale ring. Silver fluid seeped from them and smoked when Kael closed his fingers.
SIZZLE!
The ash-lipped survivor dragged in a full breath. Vaela eased his hand open one finger at a time while Renn checked his wrist and counted him again.
"Twenty-one," Renn said. Relief softened the word. "He is hurt, but he is still with us."
Orrek helped the man sit against the wall. His anger showed in the careful way he supported the injured hand. "The door reached through Kael and chose somebody who could not fight it. I can keep everyone away from the hollow, but we cannot stay on this landing."
Vaela returned to the door and studied the pale copy. "The image is drawing pressure from a groove beside the lower hinge. Breaking the image may do nothing unless the feed beneath it breaks as well."
Kael followed her gaze. A narrow red line entered the wall near the floor, climbed behind the plates, and ended beneath the projected wrist.
"Move everyone to the far side," he said. "Orrek can keep the chain between them and the drains. I will break the feed while you watch the hinge."
The group moved as soon as Kael finished. Renn guided the injured man away from the door, Jaro helped the older survivors across the drains, and Orrek stretched his chain over the landing before warning everyone about the tightening links.
Kael struck the wall beside the lower hinge.
BANG!
The red stone dented. The projected hand trembled, but the door remained closed.
Vaela pointed with the wrapped blade. "Lower. The groove bends beneath the second plate, and the hinge is hiding the last part."
Kael drove his left fist into the bend.
BANG!
A white plate jumped from its track. The copy above the hollow lost two fingers, while the real mark on Kael’s palm tightened hard enough to split the skin.
He struck the exposed groove.
CRUNCH!
Stone broke around the pressure feed. Pale fluid burst from the wall and carried tiny hand-shaped scraps across the floor. Each scrap collapsed before it reached the nearest drain.
The projected palm vanished. A wet seam opened between the door plates, and something behind them pulled away.
Kael forced his fingers into the seam with his unmarked hand. The plates pushed back, biting into his knuckles, while the mark on his right palm burned and tried to drag that hand toward the hollow.
Orrek planted one boot against the chain. "The door is moving. Give me enough space to place a link inside it."
Kael widened the gap. Vaela slid the flat of her wrapped blade against the damaged hinge, and Orrek threw a chain link between the plates.
CLANG!
The door closed on the link. Orrek took the strain through his waist instead of his injured shoulder, and Kael tore the broken plate away before the mechanism could reset.
CRASH!
White metal hit the landing. The opening was narrow, but it was wide enough for a person to pass sideways.
Renn moved the survivors through in pairs. He counted each body on the far side, pausing whenever someone needed help crossing the raised track. Vaela remained beside the injured man until he could move his fingers without assistance.
Kael entered last.
The corridor beyond was tiled in white stone, with red drains along both walls. Hand molds hung from the ceiling on thin metal arms. Some had broad worker palms, some had long fingers, and several were small enough to belong to children. Other shapes carried claws, extra joints, or knuckles too heavy to be human.
A blade closed across the first empty mold.
SNIP!
Another blade closed farther down.
SNIP!
Pale fingers unfolded from every hanging shape as the blades aligned with wrists and knuckles. The devices had been built to remove living hands and preserve whatever movement the white rooms considered useful.
Renn looked down the corridor, then at Kael’s cracked mark. "How do we cross without giving them another hand?"
Kael watched the nearest blade open. Its arm drew back toward the left wall before every cut, and a thin cable tightened above it.
"We find what moves them," he said. "Keep your hands below your shoulders until I break the first one."
Vaela adjusted the cloth around her burned wrist and guided the injured survivor behind Orrek. Jaro gathered two loose pieces of white plate from the floor, testing their weight before offering one to Sova.
The hanging hands turned toward Kael as the group entered. His mark cooled beneath the silver fluid, but the cracks remained.
A row of blades opened ahead of them.
Kael stepped beneath the first cable and raised his unmarked fist.