"Go!" Caelan shouts, the word ripped from his throat by the wind and the blare of the klaxon. "Get the Relic to the tunnel! Go!"
Lucien doesn't hesitate. Obedience is not in his nature, but trust now is. He turns his back on Caelan and continues his desperate, terrifying scramble down the ivy-covered wall, the precious, bundled jar held tight in one arm. Flashlight beams dance wildly around him, but the thick leaves of the ancient vine offer just enough cover.
On the roof, Caelan is a solitary figure, a perfect target under the harsh, white glare of the searchlight. He hears the heavy thud of the roof access door being forced open behind him. He has seconds.
He sprints.
Not toward the ledge, not toward a desperate jump, but toward the opposite side of the roof, away from Lucien. He is no longer just escaping. He is creating a diversion. He is the king, and Lucien is the bishop carrying the queen to safety. Every second they chase him is another second for Lucien to get away.
He leaps over a ventilation unit, his worn sneakers skidding on the gravelly roof surface. He can hear the shouts of the guards behind him, their heavy boots crunching on the gravel, closing in. He's fast, but they are professionals. They will corner him.
The roof ends. He is at the edge, a sheer, four-story drop to the hard pavement below. There is no ivy on this side. It's a dead end.
He is trapped.
He turns, his back to the abyss, his chest heaving as he faces the three Marche Corp security guards advancing on him. They are clad in black tactical gear, their faces grim, efficient. They move with the synchronized, predatory grace of a wolf pack.
The lead guard, a mountain of a man with a scarred face, stops ten feet away. He doesn't raise a weapon. He doesn't need to. His presence is a weapon.
"Caelan Veston," the guard says, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "Mr. Marche would like a word. He is a very patient man, but his patience has limits. Please, come with us. No one else needs to get hurt." The threat is quiet, professional, and absolutely chilling.
Caelan's mind races, searching for an escape, for a weapon, for anything. But there is nothing. Just the flat roof, the empty sky, and the long drop behind him.
His hand brushes against the pocket of his pants.
He feels something small, hard, and knobby.
He had forgotten it was there. In the frantic, joyous chaos of prepping for the Founder's Feast, he had slipped one of Talia's most gloriously ugly, twisted carrots into his pocket. A little souvenir. A private joke.
His fingers close around it. Its shape is awkward, defiant, a mess of lumps and forks. It is a root that refused to grow straight. An ingredient that had chosen the difficult path.
The guards begin to close in, spreading out to flank him, cutting off any possibility of a last-ditch sprint.
In this final, desperate moment, Caelan doesn't think about techniques or domains. He doesn't think about his gift. He thinks about what the carrot has to say.
He pulls it from his pocket.
The lead guard pauses, a flicker of genuine confusion on his hard face. "Is that... a carrot?"
Caelan holds it up, not like a weapon, but like an offering. The searchlight catches it, illuminating its gnarled, defiant form. It's a ridiculous, pathetic gesture. The boy who brought a carrot to a gunfight.
He closes his eyes, just for a second. And he asks the carrot one last question. What is your truest story?
And the carrot answers.
He opens his eyes. The fear is gone. His face is a mask of serene, absolute focus.
With a motion so smooth and fast it is almost a blur, he snaps the carrot in half.
And he eats it.
He takes one loud, deliberate, glorious crunch.
The sound seems to echo across the rooftop. It is the most mundane and most defiant act imaginable. While the forces of a corporate empire corner him, while his friends risk everything in the tunnels below, he is calmly, peacefully, enjoying a snack.
The guards stop, utterly flummoxed by the sheer, unadulterated weirdness of the moment.
And then the boon hits.
But this time, the boon isn't for a judge. It isn't for a friend. It's for himself.
The carrot was a survivor. It had fought through hard, rocky soil. It had twisted and contorted itself to find nourishment, to reach for life. It was a fighter. Its core story, its most profound flavor note, was resilience.
As Caelan chews, a jolt of pure, clean energy floods his system. It is not a burst of adrenaline. It is a wave of calm, centered, indomitable will. His exhaustion vanishes. The fear is burned away. The frantic pounding of his heart slows, becoming a steady, powerful rhythm. The world seems to sharpen, to slow down. He sees the exact distance between the guards. He feels the wind direction on the back of his neck. He calculates the trajectory.
The lead guard, unnerved by the sudden shift in Caelan's demeanor, lunges forward. "Enough of these games!"
Caelan doesn't dodge. He doesn't fight. He drops. He lets his body go limp, a controlled fall backward, over the edge of the roof.
The guards shout, lunging for him, thinking he has chosen suicide over capture.
But he has not.
His hand shoots out, catching the stone ledge of the roof at the last possible second. He swings his body under the overhang, his sneakers finding a tiny, decorative lip in the brickwork that no one would ever see from above or below. He is clinging to the sheer face of the building, completely hidden from the rooftop.
He hangs there, the wind whistling around him, holding his breath as he hears the frantic shouts of the guards from above. "Where did he go?! He couldn't have just… vanished!"
Below, hidden in the shadows of the arboretum, a tunnel grate slides open. A hand emerges, then another. Lucien climbs out, clutching the bundled Relic, followed by Talia, Mira, and finally, a disheveled but triumphant Nyra.
They are all safe. Their mission is a success.
Caelan Veston, the boy armed with a single, perfect carrot, clings to the side of a four-story building, an army at his back and an impossible fall below, his heart beating with the steady, stubborn rhythm of a root that refuses to break.