The mountain kept its own time. Water breathed through the rock in slow drafts, carrying a cold smell of stone and lichen. The ancient karst hall ran long and high, ribbed by limestone like the inside of a giant bell. On the eastern wall, the old lotus altar stood half grown from crystal and half carved by hands that remembered older patterns. It was the size of a cradle for a grown body, white as salt, its petals lapped by a shallow run of springwater that fed a clear underground pool.
Mira lay in the lotus bowl. A thin white cloth covered her to the collarbone and tucked around her shoulders to keep heat. Her lashes were white now. Her hair had taken on a pale sheen. Her skin was not the milk-color of winter but the glass-clear pallor of snow lit from inside. When the spring's chill air touched her, it shivered with a faint answer, as if it recognized something and tried to speak.
Kael checked the ward lines sketched along the floor. The ink was dark, the strokes precise. Each sigil joined to the next in a ring around the altar: boundary, hush, clouding, mute-scent, false-echo, seven tiny radios for misdirection laid into the stone with crushed silver and salt. He lifted one palm and pushed a measured breath along the circle. The ink didn't flutter. Good. Stable.
Selina knelt by the lotus and tested the warm cloth near Mira's throat. Her hand was steady, but her face was set. She had braided her hair tight and pinned it; a single copper pin lay across the nape to hold the last loop. The ring on her thumb struck the altar rim once as she adjusted the cloth. The click moved across the cavern like a small announcement.
"Her pulse is faster than last night," Selina said. "Not wild. Just higher than her baseline."
Kael kept his voice low. "Rate?"
"Ninety-two. It was eighty-one when she drifted off. Breath is twelve. Even." Selina looked up at him. "I don't like the pace, but it's a clean climb. Not the ragged kind."
"We need the climb," Kael said. "The gates opened. The world is leaking in. If she lags here, the outside will try to shape her first. We can't let that happen."
Selina pressed her thumb lightly under Mira's jaw and counted again. "I know what we need. I want to do it without breaking her."
"We will not break her," Kael said. "That is the first rule."
"I remember the rules," Selina said. "I wrote them with you."
Silence fell for a few breaths. Water ticked in the stalactites and fell in slow drops to the pool. In the distance, deep in the caves, a sound like a short sigh came and went, as if some far tunnel had opened and closed. The world above was tearing itself into pieces and re-sewing them. The ground brought news of it in small messages. The mountain did not care about politics or clans. It cared about weight and time.
Mira shifted faintly. It was not a full movement. It was the kind of tiny adjustment a body makes when a muscle somewhere tries to keep its promise. The cloth rose and fell. A breath left her with a soft sound, and the white lashes fluttered but did not open.
Selina reached for the small ledger on the flat of rock beside the altar. She recorded the numbers without commentary: 07:18 — Pulse 92. Resp 12. Skin cool to touch at jawline and wrist. Color steady. No nosebleed overnight. She set the pencil down. "She will wake for a window," she said. "Maybe ten minutes. Maybe less. When she does, we have to be clear. No riddles, no history lecture. We give her a reason to trust us through the next push. If we fail that, she will fight the cocoon. I will not let her hear panic in our voices."
Kael nodded once. "Agreed. We will keep it straight." He looked at Mira's face and then at the cave mouth where a stone screen broke the line of sight from the entry passage. "I will run the perimeter again. Then we talk to her."
Selina didn't look up from Mira. "Run it now. I hear Nora in my head when I close my eyes. If she's anywhere near this mountain, I want to know before we start."
Kael took the eastern path, lit one small lamp, and walked the warded route through the three feeder tunnels they had sealed last night. He moved like a person who had already memorized every loose pebble and every seam in the stone. At the first choke point, he pressed his palm to a rune post set waist-high. It warmed and then steadied. At the second, he stopped and listened. Far away, a drip counted out seconds. The draft brushed the hair at his wrist and did not change speed. Good. No pushed air. No sneaking torch.
At the narrowest passage, where an old fissure had been shaped into a man-wide door, he paused. A skein of talisman slips lay under the lintel stone, each painted with a different hand, some very old. He read them as he did every round—cloud, forget, pass over, blind eye—and tested the false trail charm he had tied on a branch outside the mouth last night. The charm still whispered his and Selina's steps down the slope in the wrong direction. Good. If anyone followed their prints to that second ledge, they would keep going into the gullies and never see the sprung ladder behind the brush.
He returned to the main hall. Mira's breathing sounded the same. Selina's shoulders had eased half a line. Kael stood within whisper distance and gave a report in plain steps. "Perimeter holds. No disturbed dust, no shifted stones, no new drafts. The misdirection line is still speaking. Outside, the sky is the wrong color again. More aurora bands. The northern arc reached south. A mountain shoulder in the east looks like it grew by a floor overnight. The new ridge is real. I put a marker on it. It did not slip when I pushed. So, the fabric is still moving. We can assume the Red Veil is busy with their arrivals and gating sites until they stabilize."
"Busy is not blind," Selina said. "Nora won't stop because the sky is interesting."
Kael's jaw tightened. "She will split her hours. She knows the difference between a screaming god and a small door."
"Do not underestimate her," Selina said. "She likes to wear the face of a neighbor. She also knows how to wait."
Kael did not answer that. He moved to the altar and rested the back of his fingers against Mira's temple. Her skin felt cool and not damp. The light at the rim of the lotus shifted, not with the lamp, but with a faint response from within the stone. It was very slight, like the feeling in the palm when you hold your hand near a low electric fence without touching it. He took his hand away. The feeling stopped.
"Her core is speaking to the ward," he said.
Selina heard the same thing in different language. "She is ready to test the edge."
"Good," Kael said. "Wake her."
Selina leaned forward and spoke near Mira's ear. "Mira, it's Selina. We're here. You're safe. Listen to my voice. I need you to come up to the surface for a short time. We will talk plainly. Then you can rest again. You are not alone."
A small line formed in Mira's brow. Her lips parted. She drew a breath that had intent behind it, not just reflex. It was not the first time she had woken here, but it was the first time since the sky had broken. She turned her face a fraction toward the sound of Selina's voice.
"I can hear you," she said. Her voice was hoarse. It held that thin thread people get when they have not spoken for a while and are checking whether their words still obey. "Where are we? I can't see anything, but it doesn't feel like my room."
"You are in a safe cavern," Selina said. "Old stone, underground. We brought you here because the city became too exposed. The Red Veil knows too much. We could not hold the flat. We did not ask your permission because there was no time to argue and your body could not handle the stress of a chase. I am telling you this plainly because I don't want you to feel tricked later."
Mira swallowed. Kael held a cup to her lips. It was plain water, cold from the spring. She took two sips and let the rest go. "I remember a car. I remember heat. I remember light through my eyelids. I remember Nora shouting in the street. Then it goes to pieces."
"That is the right order," Selina said. "Nora called for help. She did not call for your good. We cut around the back. We used a route that was made for this. We got here without a tail."
Mira's throat tightened. "You said safe. I want to believe that. I want to, but I need you to say the parts I hate. I need you to tell me what you gave me. Not the tea. The other one."
Selina did not look away. "We gave you a nectar that helps your body accept a change it was already making. We did not name it because if we had said the name, you would have searched for it, you would have read things without context, and you would have panicked. I am not proud that we kept the word from you. I am not ashamed we kept you alive."
Mira lay still. The pool whispered around the lotus. "Did it hurt me?"
"It moved you faster," Selina said. "It caused nosebleeds and weakness because your blood was learning a new task. We recorded everything. We kept doses tiny. We cut back when you flagged. We did not take risks we couldn't answer for. We also knew waiting was not an option. The world opened. The energy outside is not gentle. If we had left you in the flat to change slowly, other hands would have tried to drag you in a direction we do not accept."
Mira turned slightly toward the deeper voice. "Kael, say your part."
He did not soften it. "We used a tool that belongs to our clan. It is not a medicine from Harland's cabinet. It's older. It works on people like you. You are not a trial. We knew what we were doing, and we took the cost on ourselves. If there had been a slower, safe road, I would have chosen it. There wasn't. I will answer to you for the parts you hate when you are stronger. I will not pretend they did not happen."
Mira breathed in and out. Her body did not shake, but her voice had a small tremor in it that was not fear so much as effort. "All right. I asked for plain. You are giving me plain. Keep going. I need to know what happens to me now. I feel… different. I can't find a better word. My skin feels tight around my face. My jaw feels numb and not numb. My fingers feel light."
Selina took her hand and set it on the altar rim. "This is the last slope before the cocoon. Your skin will go very pale. It will look white, not sick white, but a complete white, like the color left and something else took its place. Your hair will lose color too. Your lashes will be white. People will think albino if they try to put it in a box. Your nails will go clear at the tips. Your pupils will look larger because the pigment around them will be almost gone. None of this is disease. It is the outside of a structure your body is building to hold the inside work."
Mira listened without flinching. "Will I stop breathing?"
"No," Selina said. "Breath will slow. Pulse will slow. You will feel like sleep. You will be able to hear. You will not be able to move much. You will be able to speak a little in the first hour. After that, speech will be hard until you cross the middle. If you need to stop, say stop. We will hear you. If you panic, say my name or Kael's name. We will answer."
Mira turned her head toward Kael again. "You said other hands would pull. Who?"
"Arthur's circle," Kael said. "Not only him. People like him. The Red Veil clan thinks you belong to their master. They will talk about destiny and gifts and protection. In truth, they want a key. They think you are a key to open things. If they get you half-awake, they will bind you with vows you didn't choose. Harland is not with them. He is a thief with a white coat. He wants money and control. He does not understand what he is poking. He only knows it shines. Nora reports both ways. She is most loyal to the Red Veil. She watched your house for months. When your light bled through by accident, she felt it. That is why we ran."
"I heard her in the street," Mira said. "I don't know what she shouted. The car door slammed. I thought I smelled her perfume. Then it all went away." She let out a small, tired sound. "I trusted her."
Selina's hand tightened. "You were right to trust the part that cared about soup and steps and bins and calling a council. She meant that. She also reports to people who do not mean you well. Both things can live in one person. It is not your fault you didn't see the second thing sooner."
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life policing every face for a second thing," Mira said. "But I also don't want to be stupid. So we will do this your way for now. I will hold my questions while you get me through the start. I need one promise for my head to stop trying to run in circles."
"Name it," Kael said.
"If I say stop, you stop. Not because you think I am weak. Not because you think you know better. Just stop. I don't want to be dragged by my own team."
"You have that promise," Selina said at once.
"You have it," Kael said. "We will stop."
A tiny breath left Mira, almost a laugh with no sound in it. "Good. Then listen. I can hear something under the floor. It sounds like a hum. It's not loud. It's like the way a fridge hums in the kitchen when you try to sleep and then you stop hearing it because your brain gives up. Except I still hear it. Is that real, or am I losing my mind?"
"It's real," Selina said. "The energy under the mountain is awake. The world is full of new channels. Some opened right under us when the gates tore. This chamber sat on a line even before the change. Now it's stronger. Your body hears it because your core is tuning to that frequency."
Kael uncurled a cloth roll and laid out three items on the rock: a shallow dish, a short knife with a flat, blunt blade meant for mixing, and a thin rod of white metal. He set them where Mira could hear them being placed. "We will bring the ward net to your pulse so it doesn't sit on you like a weight," he said. "I'll open the three inner anchors. Selina will call the lotus lines by name. When you feel a rise in your ribs, breathe with it. Don't try to catch it or stop it. Let it pass. If your hands tingle, ignore it. If your nose stings, tell us. If you feel a flash in your head, say it."
Mira breathed in and out. "All right. Do it."
Selina set one palm flat on the altar's rim and spoke in a steady voice that did not try to sound holy. "First anchor, wake. Second anchor, wake. Third anchor, wake. Lines hold. Lines quiet. No outside claim." The old grooves in the stone took the sound and gave it back as a small glow. It was not a bright light. It was a clean whiteness like the color that happens when you scrape quartz. Not dramatic. Sure.
Kael pricked the pad of his right thumb with the blunt blade and let two dark drops fall into the shallow dish. He held the metal rod over the dish and caught each drop on the rod so the blood spread thin across the white. He touched the rod to the first anchor mark in the stone and the line ran bright for one finger's length and then faded to a steady chalk-white. He did the same to the second and third. He pressed his thumb to a cloth to stop the small bleed and wiped the blade clean.
Mira's breath hitched. Her fingers flexed once against the rim. A ripple moved through the clear pool at the base of the lotus as if someone had let out a longer breath under the surface. The ward lines around the altar brightened in a single wave and then settled. The air pressure in the cavern changed. The hairs on Kael's wrist lifted.
"Pulse spike," Selina said quietly. "One nineteen. Now falling. One ten. Ninety-eight. Ninety-one. Back to ninety-two."
Mira swallowed. "I felt it. It was like walking past a fence with a charge and not touching it but still feeling your teeth buzz. It wasn't painful. It was strange."
"Good," Kael said. "That was the ward net meeting your rhythm and recognizing it. We cut the weight in half with that pass. It should feel easier now."
Mira eased her shoulders by a fraction. "It does. I also feel very tired. Not the sleepy kind. The deep kind you get after you cry without moving your face."
Selina set her hand on Mira's shoulder. "You can sleep. You did the hard part. We will sit."
Mira hesitated. "I don't want to leave the surface yet. I need to say two more things while my head is clear. First, I do not forgive you for the nectar. Not today. I understand why you did it. I can hold that and not forgive right now. Second, I want you to know I am not a project. If I live through this, I will not be your relic or your shrine. I will be me. If that makes me rude later, you can remind me I said it now."
Selina did not defend herself. "I hear you," she said. "I accept both."
Kael's voice came quiet and direct. "You are not a project. You are not our proof. You are the person we crossed a city for. I will take your anger when you can afford to spend it. For now, spend your breath on the work. We will stand the door."
Mira's mouth twitched again, almost a smile. "All right. I'm going to let go."
She let her head sink into the small cushion. Her breath slowed. The tension in her neck stepped down a notch. The lines in her brow smoothed. She did not fall hard. She drifted out the way a person does when the body and the place agree on the next step.
Kael and Selina took their places on the stone facing the altar. They sat cross-legged, hands on knees, back straight but not forced. This was not a ceremony. It was maintenance. Kael spoke first, low. "We have one hour if the pattern holds. After that, her mind will go under for a longer pass and we won't be able to talk to her in the usual way. During the hour, we should decide what we tell her next time she surfaces. If the Red Veil forces our hand before night, we may not get a second quiet talk."
Selina nodded. "We tell her the simple story: who we were to her, what we are now, what we need her to do if we fall. No titles. No oaths. Just plain tasks."
"Agreed," Kael said. "We start with names. Not the clan's, ours."
Selina looked at Mira's still face. "She will ask what my name was. She will want a reason to use it. I will say it and not ask her to pretend memory she doesn't have."
Kael rubbed his thumb over his palm to feel the small cut. The sting kept his attention clean. "We also need to decide the first place we take her when she crosses the midline and needs the deep chamber. This altar can hold the start. It cannot hold the heavy stage. The inner sanctum has the bed we need."
"It is still sealed," Selina said. "We never broke that lock after the purge. We need two keys. You hold one. I hold one. We will open it together when she is ready."
Kael let that sit. "And if we die before we open it?"
"We don't die before we open it," Selina said, and for the first time a thin thread of steel cut through the calm. "If you are planning for our death, plan later. Today we plan for work."
He didn't apologize. He moved on. "We also have to deal with Nora. I would prefer not to hurt her."
"I don't want to hurt her either," Selina said. "I do not plan to leave a path for her to follow. If she finds this place, the fault is mine."
Kael took a breath to answer, but the ward line along the outer circle winked once. It was not bright. It was a blink, like a green light on a machine that says alive. He turned his head a fraction and looked past the stone screen toward the entry corridor. He did not stand. He didn't like to spook the air if nothing was there.
Selina saw his head shift. "Movement?"
He kept his voice level. "A light touch on the farthest line. Could be a fox. Could be a person who knows how to walk."
Selina didn't turn her head. "Listen."
They sat without breathing for three heartbeats. Then it came. A small soft sound, like a foot that chose where to land and meant not to strike anything that would carry noise. Then a pause, and then the sound again, farther from the floor, as if the person had shifted weight to the wall to step over a gap. Someone trained. Or someone who lived in caves.
Kael put one hand flat on the rock between them. "Stay with her. I'll fetch the second ring to the close line. If it's nothing, we go back to quiet. If it's something, I will bring it to me before it finds you."
Selina's hand tightened on Mira's cloth. "If they breach, I roll her to the back of the lotus and flood the channel. That buys us twenty seconds."
He nodded and moved like a piece of shadow that remembered it was allowed to be human. He did not hurry. He took the left path along the wall, stepped over the trick stone he had loosened last night, and slid into the mouth of the entry throat. He set two fingers against the rock and felt for vibration. There. A small, regular grate of boot leather hitting limestone. He counted the beats. Two sets, staggered. Light weight in front. Heavier in back. No metal jingle. No careless cough. Whoever they were, they were not children.
Kael eased back, lifted his palm, and pressed it to the second ward ring chalked near the floor. He breathed out quietly and fed it a slow push. The ring brightened to a low white and then turned thin, almost invisible, as it stretched down the tunnel and re-coiled the air so that every sound would bleed sideways into a niche where the echo had been trained to die.
The footfalls reached the most narrow bend and then paused. A voice spoke, very low, in a language the city had never used. "Do you feel that?"
The second voice answered in the same low tone. "I feel nothing. I see nothing. But the draft is wrong."
Kael caught the first accent at once. Red Veil. Not the top tier. Scouts. The second voice held a different training—one of the city thieves, perhaps, hired for their nose and then taught to keep quiet. He let them stand there and think. After a long half minute, the first voice said, "We go back and call it busy. If there was a door here, it is sleeping. There is better noise to the south."
The second voice grunted once. The footfalls receded, soft and careful. The ward line near Kael's palm cooled. He waited another full minute. Then he let breath into his lungs again and walked back into the hall.
"Two scouts," he said quietly. "Red Veil with a city hire. They felt the false draft and didn't like it. They left it alone. We got lucky. Nora didn't come herself. She would have kept pressing until she broke something."
Selina stared at the entry gap until her eyes watered, then forced herself to look back at Mira. "We need to move her to the inner sanctum before dusk."
"Agreed," Kael said. "We will not get two easy passes in one day."
Mira stirred again, slower this time. Selina leaned in at once. "We are here. It's Selina. Take your time. Come up only if it feels okay."
Mira's voice was a whisper. "I heard steps. I thought I was dreaming them."
"You heard steps," Selina said. "They're gone. We turned them away. You did well. Your pulse held."
Mira wet her lips. "I don't like this part. I feel like my body is a hallway and I can't tell which room is mine. Say something that keeps me in the right one."
Selina chose facts. "This is the lotus chamber under our mountain. The altar you feel under your arms is white stone. Your hair is on the pillow. The water you hear is a small spring. Kael is on your left. I am on your right. You are safe."
Mira exhaled a little. "Keep talking. Tell me one thing about before. Not grand. Just one small thing I can trust."
Selina didn't dig for poetry. "You hate the taste of celery. You will eat it if I hide it in soup. You always know when I try, even if you cannot see it. You make a face and then say thank you and finish the bowl. That is how I know who you are."
Mira made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh if it had more air. "That is stupid and I like it. Kael, say yours."
He didn't reach for old worlds. "Your window latch sticks in the flat. I sanded it last month. It still sticks when the air is damp. You still open it a finger at night because you want the air to move. You said you liked the sound of the city, even when you said you hated the city. That is how I know you don't lie to make people feel better. You say two things that can both be true."
Mira listened like a person going down a stair in the dark and finding the step there. "All right. Then listen to me. If we have to run, you do not carry me like luggage. You talk to me the whole time. You tell me the number of steps, the turns, the tight bits. I may not be able to walk, but I will not be cargo. If I pass out, you still talk, because I will hear you somewhere."
Selina answered at once. "I agree."
"Agreed," Kael said. "I will count the steps and call every turn."
"Good," Mira breathed. "Now I need to ask the thing I didn't want to ask. After the cocoon, will I remember anything? You said no oaths, no titles. Fine. But I need to know what I lose."
Selina didn't lie. "You will not lose yourself. You will gain layers. The memory will feel like a house you used to live in. The furniture is there. The rooms are there. You don't need to move back into that house to use the things from it. But you will remember enough to be angry with me for not telling you sooner, and you will be angry with yourself for the time you spent feeling small because people told you that you were."
Mira was quiet for a few heartbeats. "Then I will be angry later. Right now, I am just tired." Her hand twitched. "One more thing. Say your names. The old ones. I don't care if I don't remember them. I want the truth on the table."
Selina met Kael's eyes. He nodded once.
Selina said, "In the old house, my name was Vale Xian. People called me Xian when they were allowed. They called me Keeper when they wanted a favor. I did not like titles then either. I held the keys to the inner rooms."
Kael said, "In the old house, my name was Kaelen Shu. People called me Shu when they were close. They called me Blade when they wanted me to do their hard work. I did not like being an instrument. I learned to be a door instead."
Mira's throat worked. "Say mine."
Selina held her gaze even though Mira could not see it. "Your name was Xuan Lian."
Mira breathed the words in and out. "I know those syllables. I don't know why I know them. I will not pretend today." She let them sit in her chest like a small weight that wasn't heavy yet. "All right. Keep watch. I'm going under."
Her breath lengthened. Her hands went loose. The pulse in her neck eased to a slow, steady tap. Selina checked her again, logged the numbers, and set the ledger aside. Kael adjusted the lamp so that the shadows fell away from her face. The white lashes made pale lines on her cheeks.
For a while, nothing changed. The mountain spoke in drips. The ward line made no complaint. The outer pool sent up a fine mist where the spring fell from a narrow lip of stone. Then it happened. It was small at first, so small that if you had not been watching, you would have blamed your own eyes. A thin brightness gathered around Mira's chest, no larger than a cupped hand. It pulsed once. The line around the altar answered involuntarily, the way a muscle jumps when a doctor taps a tendon. The pulse moved out, hit the ward ring, and came back lighter. On the second pass, the pulse was stronger. On the third, it flashed white, clean and sharp, like a strike of quartz on steel—but there was no sound, only a tight, dry crackle in the air that raised the skin on Kael's arms.
Selina sat forward. "Ward accepted. Anchor holds."
"Count," Kael said.
"One," Selina murmured, "two, three, four, five—break—one, two—good—three, four—settle." The glow dimmed. The ward line returned to its faint chalk-white. Mira's breath did not change pace. The pool's surface trembled once in a ring out from the lotus and then went glass again.
"Her pulse," Selina said, "eighty-four." She wrote it down. "No bleed." She watched Mira's nose for another ten seconds to be sure. "We crossed the gate test."
Kael let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. He set his palms on his knees and looked at Selina. "We move at dusk. The scouts won't come in the afternoon again. They'll come under cover or not at all. Nora will have to deal with her clan master's landing. They won't spare her for a side errand once the inner circle arrives."
"She will try to slip away," Selina said. "She will lie about why she is gone. She believes in her cause. She also thinks she is more clever than everyone around her." Selina's mouth flattened. "I have no pleasure in saying that. I wish she had chosen a different king."
Kael stood. "I will check the upper shelf," he said. "If wind changed, the scent line outside the third gate will need powder." He started toward the passage, then stopped. "You should tell her father's part when she wakes next. Not the gossip. The truth. It will be uglier from someone else's mouth."
Selina looked at Mira. "I will tell it. I will not dress it."
Kael left for the upper shelf. The sound of his footfalls went soft. Selina stayed with Mira and watched the small movements that meant life. She left the ledger open to the last line and kept her hand near Mira's wrist without touching it.
In the city below the mountain, the Red Veil's landing site ignited with pageant. A circle of fire in a wash of red banners took a square they had no right to take. Men and women in heavy scarlet coats stood shoulder to shoulder around a raised stone brought through one of the new cuts in the world. The stone had been part of a temple platform in another place before it appeared in the middle of this city's road. It still smelled like smoke. A man in a red hood stood on it and raised both hands to brow height and did not speak for a very long time. That was a kind of speaking all by itself. Nora watched from the corner of a rooftop with her coat hood up, one hand over her mouth. She did not know yet whether she was closer to tears or laughter. She could not decide if this was the day all of her waiting paid off or the day all of her neighbors got eaten. She made a decision anyway. She sent a message. Her phone screen lit her face for a second in the gloom and then went black again. She turned toward the hill. She had already sent the mountain's name hours earlier. It sat like a stone in the Red Veil's to-do list. She could do nothing more. So she watched the red man not speak and told herself this was holy.
Arthur Halden stood twenty meters from the stone and did not move his hands, because men like him understood that their hands mattered only when they held a pen. He watched the hooded man and cataloged every small detail. He felt very young and very old. He wanted to be inside. He hated being outside. He told himself that would change. He believed it. He had hired the right men. He had put the right money into the right cracks at the right time. He had convinced himself that blood was a fair price for a future he could bear. He was wrong about the last part, but he did not know it yet.
Back under the mountain, Kael returned from the shelf with a dusting of red clay on his fingers where he had repacked a mark. "Wind's colder," he said. "Northcurrent pushing in. Good for us. It keeps scent low."
Selina's mouth tilted. "You said scent like a hunter."
"Everyone is a hunter now," Kael said, and sat again. "We are just honest about it."
Mira stirred. It came quicker this time, not a long reach from deep water, but a short lift. Selina touched the cloth. "We're here. You can come up if you need to."
Mira's voice was stronger. "I need to know what my father did. No garnish."
Selina did not soften it. "Arthur spoke to Harland by phone last night. He told him you were a drain. He called you a useless thing. He said he wanted you gone because you cost him money and because other men used your name to push him. Harland promised to keep you and his access both. He failed. He is angry. Arthur is angrier. He is now talking to men in red coats because they told him they could teach him how to hold what he is losing. They are using him. He will not see it until they take what they want and leave him nothing that feels like him."
Mira's breath didn't hitch. She had expected the shape of that. "Thank you for not making it pretty. I do not have room for polite lies right now." She licked her lips. "This is going to sound petty. I want to say it out loud anyway. He called me a useless thing. I will not be a thing for anybody. Not for him. Not for you. Not for the men in red. If anyone tries to name me with a title that swallows me, I will break the mouth that says it. I am saying it now so when I forget, you remind me I said it."
"I will remind you," Selina said. "And if one day I am the mouth that says it, you can break it. I am not joking."
Kael's voice had iron in it. "No one will name you property while I breathe."
Mira took that in and then let it go, not because she did not value it, but because she could not carry any more promises right now. She turned her face to the left. "Kael, I asked for something yesterday and I could not hear your answer after we left the street. I want it again. When you carry me, don't be quiet. Count the steps. Tell me when you set me down. Tell me when the light changes. Tell me where you put your feet. I need to know I am not a sack."
"I will talk the whole way," Kael said. "I will tell you the turns, the steps, the width of the door, the shape of the rocks, the number of the ladder rungs. If I stop talking, it means I'm breathing hard because I am moving fast. I will still make a sound so you know I'm there."
Mira's throat moved. "All right. Then I can do my part. I will not scream unless I have to. I will not flail and make us both fall. If I pass out, I expect you to keep going and tell me what I missed when I wake."
"Agreed," Kael said.
Selina looked toward the entry once more, then back at Mira. "You have ten minutes before the next wave. Do you want to know the plan from here to the inner sanctum?"
"Yes," Mira said. "Tell me like a map."
Selina laid it out. "We leave at dusk. Kael carries you. I lead. From this hall we take the west throat. Thirteen steps to the corner. The corner is low; we duck. Then seven steps to the narrow door. The door has a lip. Kael will say lift. He will lift you then. The ladder is twelve rungs. I will name them as your feet pass. At the top, there is a ledge. I will say step. Kael will step. The second passage is angled. It leans left. You will feel the lean. Hold to his coat. I will set a low light for his foot. We do not use a bright light. At the third turn, we hit the split. We take the right split. The left split goes to a dead shaft. At the second ladder, we go down eight rungs, not twelve. If we go twelve, we drop too far. After that, the floor is even. The sanctum door is ahead. We open it together. Inside there is a long bed made from the same stone as this altar. We put you there. You sleep. I sit at your right. Kael stands at the door. He will not be able to sit until he trusts the door. That is all right. When he trusts the door, he will sit."
Mira's mouth quirked. "You know him."
"I have had practice," Selina said.
Mira breathed again and let her body rest. "That is a good plan. No heroics. No decoration. I can follow that even if I hate every part of it."
Selina glanced at the ledger. The line with the last pulse mark looked clean. "Another wave is coming," she said softly. "You will feel the tightness and the light. Let it pass. It may flash brighter. If it does, it is because the mountain answers. We did not bring you here to keep you in a cage. We brought you here so the cage outside could not name you first."
"I understand," Mira said. "Do it."
They sat. The mountain waited. The second wave came. The white pulse gathered in Mira's chest again, brighter than before. It rolled out, hit the line, and this time the cave itself answered. It was not loud. It was a pressure, like the moment before thunder when the air leans into your ears. A ring of pale light ran through the lotus petals and the pool flashed once with a silver skin and then cleared. The ward didn't fight it. It took the energy and shunted the excess into the old channels. A smell like clean stone rose, sharp and then gone.
Selina counted again. "One, two, three, break—one—two—settle." She leaned forward to see Mira's face. There was no bleed. The lashes lay pale on her cheeks. The line of her mouth had softened.
Kael let the breath out of his lungs slowly. "That is the strongest the ward will take without a shift," he said. "We move at dusk. No delay."
Selina nodded. "Agreed." She checked the time in her head. "You should eat. I will not move her until I see you put food in your body."
"I will eat," Kael said. "You too."
They kept watch in turns as the hours thinned. When Selina's watch came, she sat close and spoke a last time into Mira's quiet. "When you wake next, we will be moving. If you are afraid, tell me. If you are angry, tell me after. If you are tired, let your body do what it is meant to do. I will keep my word. Kael will keep his. You will keep breathing."
Outside, the sky boiled with coils of light that had no business over this latitude. A long mountain range that did not belong to this map finished grinding its heel into the city's edge and stopped as if an invisible hand had set it down. In the new lowlands between the old buildings and the patch of foreign hills, animals that shouldn't exist came out of splits and looked around like tourists. A gray thing with too many knees put its head into a bus shelter and pulled it out again in confusion. A woman on a roof saw a man in a long blue robe step out of a tear in the air and ride a sword into the sky. She dropped her phone and did not pick it up. Far away, in a clean office that would never be clean again, a government officer signed a paper that said "no risk" and knew, in the bone behind his face, that he had just lied to his last day of peace.
The mountain didn't hurry for any of it. Dusk came as it always had: light bled away and the cold came up. Kael rose and rolled his shoulders once. "It's time."
Selina was already moving. She took the pack with the small lamp and the water and the strips of cloth and the flat blade and the ledger and put it on her back. She checked the ladder cords once more at the lip of the first drop. She threw a thin line across the narrow point of the second turn where the floor tilted, in case Kael needed to catch his balance while keeping his arms steady. She looked back at the altar and at Mira.
Kael slid his arms under Mira with the care of a person lifting a sleeping child from a car seat after a long drive. He didn't rush. "Mira, it's Kael. I am lifting you now. We are going to start. I will talk the whole way. If you need me to stop, say stop. If you cannot say stop, make any sound. I will hear it."
Mira didn't open her eyes. "All right," she said. It was barely sound. It was enough.
Kael lifted. She weighed almost nothing. He hated that. He did not let it show on his face or in his arms. He folded her close, careful not to bend her neck. Selina led. The lamp was low. The altar's white lines fell away behind them and the black of the throat took them.
"Three steps," Kael said at once, voice steady. "Low ceiling. Duck now. Good. Seven steps. Narrow door. Lift. I'm lifting you. One, two, three, now we clear. Ladder. Twelve rungs. I will count. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Step to ledge. Good. Passage leans left. We lean into it. My left shoulder is to the wall. Your cheek is to my shoulder. I have you. Turn. Right split. Not left. Step down—there's a lip—good. Second ladder, eight rungs only. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Off. Flat floor."
Selina's voice came from ahead. "Door ahead," she said. "Keys."
The sanctum door was not dramatic. It was a slab of pale stone the height of two men and the width of a cart. No iron. No carvings. Just a faint seam and the memory of hands that had lifted it once. Selina took the key from a pouch inside her coat. Kael shifted Mira very slightly and freed his key from the inside of his sleeve. They pressed both keys to the stone at the same time, a handspan apart. The stone pulsed once, like the altar had earlier. The seam widened to a soft line, then to a shadow, then to a gap large enough to pass a person carrying another person.
"Inside," Selina said. "Straight. Three steps. Bed to the right."
Kael carried Mira to the bed. It was not a bed in the modern sense. It was a long slab with a shallow hollow shaped to hold a back and shoulders and hips. The stone was warmer than the air. Selina had laid a folded cloth on it earlier. Kael set Mira down. "Down now," he said. "I'm laying you back. Head on the pillow. Right shoulder down. Good. I'm adjusting the cloth. Tell me if the edge scratches."
"It's fine," Mira whispered.
Selina moved to Mira's right. "We're going to set the inner ward," she said. "It is quieter than the last one. It will not shock. It will feel like a steadying hand."
Kael touched the two inner points with his thumb where he had opened the anchors earlier, and Selina spoke the short words that applied the seal. The bed took the sound and answered in a low tone that only the chest could hear. Mira's breath slowed again. Her hands uncurled.
Selina looked at Kael. He looked at the door. He did not sit until he had counted a slow sixty and his shoulders had stopped acting like they had to keep a roof from falling. Then he sat on the floor, back to the wall by the door, hands on his knees. Selina opened the ledger and wrote, not for ritual, but to keep time honest.
Distant under the mountain, a tremor went through the rock. It was small. Dust fell in the old passages. A bat that had somehow survived the change moved in its sleep.
Selina thought of Nora then. She had not wanted to think of her, but the mind pulls on its own strings. She pictured Nora's quick hands, the way she barked at the council, the way her voice changed when she talked to the man in the red hood. She did not hate Nora. She did not forgive her. She told herself not to rehearse speeches she would not get to deliver.
Kael closed his eyes for a moment and saw Arthur's face near a fire. He let the picture go. He did not have room for Arthur and all of the stairs and the door and the watch and the pulse and the next plan. He would pick Arthur up again when he had a hand free. For now, he kept one hand on the floor to feel the tremble if it came and one hand on his knee to keep his breathing even.
Mira slept, if sleep was the right word. Inside that quiet, something old turned and recognized the place. It did not push. It did not demand. It opened a single door and let in air that had not been available yesterday. A line of heat ran down the center of her spine and then cooled. The white at her lashes looked whiter in the dim.
Outside, the Red Veil's master finally spoke in the square. The sound went out over the heads of a thousand people who thought they were ready. In a dozen cities, doors opened and people in old clothes stepped through holding weapons that didn't look like weapons until they moved. Bombs failed against the fast ones and worked only on the small ones that weren't worth the shells. A few people in the modern world felt something in their bones and sat down hard on their floors and didn't understand why they were crying. The lucky ones had someone in the house to hand them water.
Night took the mountain. The sanctum held steady. Selina watched. Kael watched. They did not blink when they didn't have to. At some hour that could have been midnight or three in the morning depending on which sky you used, Mira's breath hitched once and then lengthened. The pulse line along her neck slowed again to a rate that would have worried a hospital but made sense here.
"We are past the first bell," Selina said softly.
Kael nodded. "We hold here until dawn. Then we see if the world outside still remembers how to balance."
He stood, stretched his hands once to keep the blood from pooling, and sat back down. "You take first sleep," he said to Selina. "You will not make me proud if you fall over in an hour."
She didn't argue. She lay on the short bench with her coat over her and closed her eyes but didn't fully let go. Kael kept his place by the door and counted breaths so he could keep time. He did not need numbers to do this. He did it anyway, because Mira had asked for counting when moving, and this was another kind of moving. He counted for her, in case some part of her could hear and needed to know that someone was still awake and telling the steps.
The mountain listened and did not answer, because stone does not care for words. It cares for weight and time and pressure and the right kind of silence. The sanctum had those. The world above had lost them. Between the two, a girl lay in white, and the people who had chosen her over every other vow held the door and kept their breath easy so hers could stay easy too.