"And then?"
"Then we collapse the ceiling."
I showed him the stress points I'd identified. The sections of the overhead structure that were already weak. The places where a few strategic strikes would bring down tons of ancient bone onto whatever was beneath.
"The storage chamber becomes a killing floor," I said. "They come in expecting easy prey. They find a tomb instead."
Bruk studied my design. His expression was unreadable.
"You would destroy part of my Keep."
"I would sacrifice one chamber to save the rest." I met his eyes. "Structures can be rebuilt. You taught me that. But if the ferals get through, if they reach me and the offspring..."
"They won't."
"They might. There are twelve of them. Maybe more by the time they attack." I put my hand on his arm. "I'm not willing to risk our future on 'maybe.' Are you?"
He looked at my hand. At my belly, where our offspring grew. At the design I'd sketched in the dust.
"What do you need?" he said.
We worked through the night.
The storage chamber ceiling wasn't naturally weak enough for my purposes. We had to create the vulnerability. Carving strategic channels into the support structure, weakening load-bearing joints, setting up the collapse without triggering it prematurely.
It was delicate work. One wrong cut and we'd bring the whole thing down on ourselves. Bruk carved while I directed, my calculations adjusting in real-time as we discovered the actual composition of the bone overhead.
"Here," I said, pointing to a junction point. "Remove material from this side. About two inches."
"That will compromise the entire western support."
"That's the idea. When we trigger the collapse, the western side falls first. It creates a cascade effect. One failure leads to the next until the whole ceiling comes down."
He made the cut. I held my breath until I confirmed the ceiling was still stable. Barely. One good impact and it would all come crashing down.
"Now the trigger mechanism," I said. "We need something I can activate from a distance. Something that will start the cascade."
"I can do it manually. Strike the weak point when..."
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "You won't be in that chamber when it collapses. I won't risk losing you to save the Keep."
"Kerris..."
"I've already lost everyone who was supposed to care about me. My family chose my brother over me. My parents chose to pretend I didn't exist." I grabbed his arm, forced him to look at me. "I'm not losing you too. We find a way to trigger this remotely, or we don't do it at all."
His expression changed. The same look he'd had when I first said I wanted to stay. Wonder. Recognition.
"There's a way," he said. "Bone resonance. A strike at the right frequency can travel through connected structures. If I position myself at the entrance to the second chamber..."
"You can trigger the collapse without being inside."
"Yes."
I kissed him. Hard. Desperate. Grateful.
"Then that's what we do."
By dawn,the trap was ready.
