“No,” I say again, and set death against the brand, not to cut, but to stitch. I thread the hook to me, to the Crown, to the geometry burned into the entrance stone. It’s a route he cannot scrub out because it isn’t on him. It’s in the law I wrote into this place.
“Now empty,” I order. “All of them.”
He doesn’t understand the word all. He understands nothing left. I push that meaning through the mark and down theslit. The tether becomes a steady note in my bones. Voren’s breathing changes—measured, steady, faster. Souls go by so fast they blur into one long passage. The dead around the ring bow without moving. The weight in my chest lifts until it’s almost nothing. The knot rattles against the brand and then settles like it has finally understood I am not a door. I am a lock.
“All,” I repeat, and the last thread loosens.
Silence falls inside me. Not absence—order.
Voren’s tether eases against my ribs. “They’re through,” he says, voice steady. “All of them.”
“Field’s holding,” Dreven adds. The quartz hums under his hand like a beast with its head bowed. His shadows sit, alert but still.
Dastian flicks his fingers and knocks the final, petty flicker sideways. It skids a shallow groove along the bank and gutter-dies. He exhales and gives me a sharp grin. “You owe me a new field.”
“You were already planning to set it on fire,” I mutter, and close my hand.
The slit clamps shut around the core. I don’t cut. I don’t need to. I set the brand deeper, thread it to the carved stone, to the Crown, to the lattice that runs through this land like fine wire. It clicks in three places that matter. Mine. Mine. Mine.
“Define,” I say one last time, quiet as a verdict.
The answer is not a name. It’s a function: Hunger.
I press the hook until it answers without trying to wriggle. “New rule. You don’t eat here.”
The seam cools under my palm. The ring’s spirals shine once, then settle. The pressure that’s been hunting down my spine withdraws, not gone. I keep my palm on the stone until the last shiver dies out. The brand sits where I put it, humming faint in my bones. I could tug right now, and he would feel it. He hates it. Good.
“Report,” I say, because if I stop to feel anything, I might sit down and not get up for an hour.
“The ring is stable,” Dreven answers, shadows easing but ready. “Your law holds.”
“The dead have stopped whispering,” Voren says. “They’re… lighter. It’s done here.”
Dastian flicks grit off his fingers and eyes the sliced-up bank with a put-upon sigh. “You owe Farmer O’Leary a new fence.”
“I’ll buy him cake,” I mutter, lifting my hand from the spirals. The sigil in the air dims but doesn’t vanish. The seam stays shut. The rule stays written.
The farmers, kings and grain-grinders around the quartz blur and go. No fanfare, just quiet endings completed. It lodges under my ribs in a way I don’t have words for.
Dreven steps close. “What did you do?”
“Hooked him,” I say, rubbing my sternum. “He’s marked to me, the Crown and this entrance. He empties when I say. He comes when I call. And he can’t feed here.”
Dastian whistles low. “That is obscenely hot.”
“Focus,” I snap, but my mouth twitches. “He isn’t gone. He retreated. I can feel the pull.” It sits northeast, a cold thread tugging at the edge of my sense.
“Where to?” Voren asks.
“Sea. Old stone of another kind. Depth.” I draw a breath that shakes a little and lock it down. “He ran for a place my law doesn’t touch.”
“Of course he did,” Dreven mutters. “Looks like we need Pool.”
I give him a quizzical stare. “Who?”
Chapter 41
Dreven
