He stops.
“I can end the thread,” I say, calmly. “Or you can come where I can see you and make your case.”
He does not understand mercy. He only understands consequences. The column steadies. The pressure eases just enough to feel him gather.
“Dastian,” I warn.
“I see it,” he says.
The core commits.
It punches the seam straight, and the geometry snaps shut around it with a hard ring and a hiss.
The sound ricochets through my skull. The core is in the slot, compressed to exactly what I asked for.
“Hold,” I bite out, and tighten everything.
Light drives like a rod straight through the centre. Shadow clamps each stray flicker that tries to bleed out. Death kisses the surface again and sits there, patient. The Order lattice hums, exact and unforgiving.
He throws a spike for my heart. Dastian palms the air and shoves it sideways. It rips a clean groove into the bank beyond the ring and dies there, harmless.
“Now, Voren,” I say.
His net threads the knot. Souls flood past my sternum like cold birds, quick touches and gone. Hundreds. Then more. The pressure drops by increments I count without meaning to. The core gets denser because it has less to hide behind.
Dreven grinds a quartz back into place with shadow and pure refusal. “You will not move,” he says to the ring, and it obeys.
The knot bucks. I don’t give it room. I narrow the slot another fraction, and the geometry locks again with that bright, painful note. The Crown answers under my ribs. The whole line of the passage stone lights, fine veins like lines on a palm. I feel him understand that he cannot flood. He can only be exactly the size I allow.
“Define,” I command once more.
The profile resolves further. Not a name. A signature. A twist in the weave he cannot hide. That is enough.
“I see you,” I say. “And because I see you, you don’t get to be everywhere.”
I bring death forward, not to cut, but to brand. I set the edge against the outer skin of the knot and press until resistance turns to compliance. The mark takes. It lands under his surface, a sigil that is nothing like Tabitha’s geometry and everything like mine. It binds to the Crown and echoes through the seam. He tries to shake it. He can’t. The brand is not a prison. It is a hook I always own.
He hates it. The pressure flares in a hard, furious pulse that tries to blow the ring. Dastian swears and shoves sideways again. The bank explodes in clods. Dreven slams his hand to the quartz and snarls. The stone stills.
“Take more,” I say through my teeth.
Voren throws the net deeper, following the echo of my brand. Souls come loose in a rush that makes the air thrum. The tether against my sternum goes from hum to steady note. The core diminishes as if someone is pulling blocks out of a stack. It fights. It has less to fight with every second.
“Enough,” the proxy’s voice would have said if it had a mouth. It doesn’t. The feeling is the same. He tries to pull out.
“No,” I say, and clamp with the Crown, light set like a pin through the centre and shadow locked tight around the edges. Death rests against the knot, waiting for my word.
“Mine,” I say. It’s legal.
The brand bites deeper. The core shrinks again. He tries to split pressure into a thousand threads, but the geometry strips them back into one line every time. Dastian knocks a hard pulse off course with a short grunt. It skims the field and dies in the bank. Voren pulls and pulls, the tether thrumming against my sternum until my teeth buzz. Dreven forces two more quartz stones to sit exactly where he wants them, and the ring steadies under his will.
“Listen,” I tell the knot. “You don’t get to be a storm. You don’t get to be a weather system that no one can stop. You don’t get to be everywhere.” I press the brand flat. “You belong to this mark. When I call, you come. When I say yield, you empty. When I say end, you end.”
He rams the slit. The frame screams again. The carved spirals flare gold. My shoulder throbs. I refuse to move. “Yield,” I say, and shove light through the centre like a rod being driven through wet clay.
Souls flood. Hundreds. Thousands. The air tightens and then eases with each release. It isn’t a spectacle. It’s a list being crossed off, name after name after name handed back to the ledger they were stolen from. The pressure drops. The knot gets small enough that I feel the exact outline of the will under it. Not a person. A habit. Endless taking. I mark that too.
He tries to retreat.
