That’s forty-three people still in Prague’s operational radius, Parker said from the auditorium. Portal mages, Shroud Guard, truth mages. We’d be sealing them in with active corruption.
I know.
You’re sentencing them to death.
I’m choosing system integrity over individual rescue. My voice stayed level and clinical—the tone my father had taught me for making impossible decisions. Prague can’t be saved without compromising our principles. So we seal it and save the other three.
Through the wellspring chamber, I felt Marigold’s necromancy waver. I felt her horror at what I was proposing.
Mari, I said softly. This is what you asked me to do, enforce boundaries even when they cost lives. Choose the system over exceptions. Make the call you can’t make because it has to come from someone else.
She was crying. I could hear it in her breathing and feel it through our connection, but she didn’t argue.
Seal Prague, Keane said from above, his voice hollow, dead. Emergency quarantine protocols. Extract who we can in the next sixty seconds. After that, it’s too dangerous.
Executing, Parker confirmed.
Above us, I heard rapid movement as orders were shouted, the auditorium mobilizing for emergency extraction.
Through Elio’s overlays, which I couldn’t see from the wellspring chamber but could sense through Marigold’s reaction, Prague’s portal mages were scrambling for emergency evacuation. Shroud Guard pulled back as truth mages abandoned their posts.
But sixty seconds wasn’t enough. The corruption surged too fast. The evacuation window was too narrow.
Twenty-three extracted, Parker reported from above. Sealing in five seconds.
Marigold’s necromancy surged. For one terrible moment, I thought she was going to break containment to reach for Prague despite my order to seal it.
Don’t, I said quietly, just to her. Hold your position.
She held and pulled her cycle authority back from Prague, letting the convergence point go. She let twenty people die because saving them meant compromising everything.
Prague sealed, Parker reported through the ceiling. Corruption contained within convergence point boundaries. No spread detected.
I knew Marigold could sense them dying. I felt each consciousness fragment through the wellspring network as corruption consumed them—slow, methodical, and inevitable.
Her hands shook on the stone, blood streaming from her nose and eyes. Scout pressed harder against her neck, trying to anchor her through the horror.
Vienna complete, Keane said from above, his voice mechanical, professional, and broken. Drain active. Termination rule functioning.
Mumbai and Cairo, Marigold said, her voice raw. I can channel full authority to both now. No need to split resources to Prague.
She was using the deaths, using the space created by abandoning Prague to strengthen the remaining lattices.
It was efficient, necessary, and horrifying.
Mumbai experiencing surge, a portal mage reported from above—the displays showing what I couldn’t see from down here.
Local Shroud Guard responding, Parker said. Cyrus…
I’ve got Wickem, I interrupted. My fire blazing hotter around the wellspring chamber perimeter, defining boundaries. Mumbai has to handle their own containment.
Copy.
But I felt it through Marigold. I knew she sensed people dying in Mumbai. Her consciousness extended through the wellspring network, trying to help, trying to save…
Pull back, I ordered. Mumbai’s casualties are not your responsibility. Your job is establishing termination rules. Let the Shroud Guard do theirs.
She pulled back, barely, her necromancy retreating from Mumbai’s dying witches to focus on the lattice construction.
