“It absorbed residual death magic the night you freed your cub,” he explains. “Now it will carry every passing bound to your fate circle—wolves, seers, even enemies you slay in bond’s defense. You’ll hear it tick like a heart at odd moments. A reminder that every step forward costs someone.”
Cold slices my ribs. “Why give me this?”
“To ask a question,” he answers. “Are you ready to keep adding names, knowing one of them may be hers?”
The wind chooses that moment to gust, filling silence with flapping banners. Below, turquoise membrane flickers again; a fissure vein branches.
I roll the stone in palm. It feels warm, alive. “When I carry pups across snowmelt falls,” I say, “I calculate distance, current, weight. Risk lives in every choice. But I still leap. Because the alternative is letting them drown at my feet.” I slide token into inner pocket near flute and scroll rubbings. “I won’t let her drown.”
“Rational thought rarely survives prophecy,” he warns quietly. “I loved a woman marked for culling once. Stole time with her between campaigns. Each dawn I woke tasting dread. One night the lattice cracked her heart mid-sentence, and all my strength could not glue chambers shut.” His hand closes on parapet, wood groaning. “Loving the dying is choosing to strangle yourself slowly.”
I face him fully. “She still worth it?”
A long breath. “Every bruise on memory, yes.” He straightens, shoulders shedding invisible weight to stand taller. “But I had to accept I couldn’t rewrite her ending. She chose how to spend her spark.”
“I’m choosing different.” My voice leaves no room for doubt. “Carmilla’s script may say sacrifice, yet ink isn’t dry. We have quills.”
A flash of admiration sparks in his eye. “Stubborn wolf.” He claps my shoulder. “Then take second lesson. Stories bend for packs, not lone beasts.” He draws small pouch from belt. Inside glints a dozen seeds encased in molten crystal. “Terrastrian pulse-seeds. Plant them in anchor circles; they drink ley bleed, convert to stabilizing roots. My gift to your anchor mission. You plant, they grow fast. But you must bleed on them each dawn.”
I accept pouch. “Consider me a willing gardener.”
He nods. Conversation slips into comfortable hush. Lanterns sway overhead, shedding circles of amber across rooftop mosaic—a huge starburst design, each ray inlayed with moon-glass. Lightning distant, closer now.
“Sky’s dropping,” Everest mutters.
We look down. Courtyard torches blaze frantic green as healers scatter, shouting. A tremor vibrates through stone beneath boots. From this height I watch turquoise seal on Boundary Pool convulse, hue shifting sickly seaweed. A hairline crack loops outward like a smile cut by cruel knife—longer than one I saw earlier.
Everest curses. “Third crack in two hours.”
“Timer quickens.” I grip parapet until knuckles pop. “Carmilla needs rest, but she’ll try to fix.”
“And you’ll watch her shatter,” he says.
I glare sideways. “Not if I carry load.”
He regards me levelly. “Then decide now what load you’re willing to bear.” He unties the braided leather bracelet from wrist, slips it over my hand. At its center, a river jewel twins the death ledger stone—this one etched with wave runes only, no names. “Signal band. Squeeze jewel, summons me within half league. You bleed, you press it; I run.”
I secure band. Familiar comfort. “Debt grows.”
“We settle after realm saved.” He grins faintly. “Maybe spar.”
“Maybe drink,” I counter.
A horn moans from lower levels—one sustained note: urgent but not catastrophic. He straightens. “Council wants update. I meet Isabelle at root chamber.” He turns, but before descending, pauses. “Rewrite her ending if you can. But write your own alongside, wolf. Don’t become footnote in hers.” With that he disappears down stairwell, coat streaming.
I remain. Wind slaps face with damp leaves. I close eyes, feel pulse of citadel: root circuits humming, people scurrying, realm grinding like glacier cracking. In inner pocket token warms—one new name etches: the Arbiter’s parasite self that died tonight. The stone murmurs against chest. I acknowledge it, then ignore.
I breathe deep, summon presence as pack alpha. Doubt scuttles edges of mind, whispering Everest’s warning—slow self-strangulation. I quell it. Loving Carmilla may tear pieces off me, but pieces left unused die anyway. Wolf instinct chooses bite, not whimper.
I pull pouch of pulse-seeds, weigh them. Twelve seeds, eight anchor sites. Four spares—insurance or sacrifice? Their surfaces hum faintly, eager for soil kissed by bleeding stars.
Thunder booms directly overhead. Rain arrives—first drop sizzling on lantern, bursting into steam. More fall, each fat bead glowing faint green where they hit rooftop mural. Rain forged from convergence fallout, carrying spectral minerals.
I lift face, let drops strike skin. Coolness clears thoughts. Promise forms: I will cut deal with every god or demon haunting these skies to buy Carmilla time. And if ending demands double sacrifice, I’ll bargain for replacement cost—my spark for hers. Pack law: alpha shields seer.
Below, fissure in pool yawns wider, turquoise curtain shredding at edges. Healers scramble with resin planks, castingdam runes. At center of crack, a silvery thread pulses upward, weaving into night. It climbs like clock’s second hand—each inch a minute nearer shatterpoint.
I seal fist. “Not yet,” I growl to night. I spin, stride to hatch.
