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Chapter 29 - Ravel of steel and shadow

The chamber was quiet at last, but it was not a peace I trusted. Frost clung to the heart's cables, glimmering like moonlight trapped in glass. Every so often, the metal beneath flexed, cracking the frost with sharp sounds that echoed too loud. The heart only slept. I matched my breathing to the slowing rhythm of the pearl in my chest, feeling it finally settle. For a few breaths, I allowed myself to take in the impossible: an organ of stone and steel lying still beneath my hands.

Lis crouched nearby, wiping condensation from the crack in her visor. "First assignment," she muttered, "and I nearly lose my head to a wall that hates us." She glanced at me and tried to smirk, but it was shaky. "Sergeant will either laugh or bury me."

I managed a tired grin. "If you tell it right, maybe she does both."

The lamps on our helms threw long arcs across the runes. They seemed dimmer now, almost wary of us. I flexed my wrist, the crystal brace still fractured, sending a low ache through my arm. The demi-god's voice stirred in memory: you guide currents; you do not own them.

Echo-Hand moved slowly around the heart, his palm hovering close without touching. He seemed to speak to it as much as to us. "Stone cords rest," he murmured. "Cut them again, and they bleed."

Ashekan leaned on his spear. "Cords or veins, they almost cooked us alive."

"The reef bled once," Echo-Hand said, his voice calm and cold. "A lung cracked itself open to swallow a plague. It devoured the shadow, but the water around it starved."

Rejah's fingers paused over her slate as she recorded every word. Lis whispered a short prayer, not for herself but for the reef above. The weight of it settled on all of us.

Rejah set three locator crystals, their hum buzzing against my teeth. Turquoise tracers spilled outward, sketching glowing maps across the floor. Tunnels lit up like roots feeding a tree.

"Veins," Veshra said, reading the patterns. "They carry slurry from the lungs to the heart."

Ashekan frowned. "Slurry? Shadow waste, organ fluid, or both?"

"Both," she said grimly. "And something else I can't name yet."

We slipped into the nearest tunnel. The ceiling pressed low overhead, walls pulsing faintly with every heartbeat of the machine. Amber rivulets slid along grooves, hissing as they touched stone. The fluid shimmered like molten glass threaded with flecks of night sky, and its heat licked my fins. My lateral line tingled with each pulse. "The pearl doesn't like this," I whispered.

Veshra adjusted her slate. "High mana density. Respect it, or it bites."

The gauge needle in her hand shook. Shadow residue coiled through the readings, dormant but waiting. One vial of this mixture could power hatchery filters for months, or poison them forever. My hand shaped a tiny shield to push droplets aside, and I felt the tremor in my fingers. Exhaustion clung to me. Echo-Hand traced the grooves of the wall like scripture, whispering words I didn't understand.

The tunnel widened into a chamber where amber fluid pooled before flowing downward. Light rippled over our armor. Ashekan planted his spear. "One vial," he said. "Proof for the council, maybe enough to save the bloom troughs."

"You wake the heart," Echo-Hand warned. "You risk reef and Exile."

Rejah's voice was soft. "We are already bleeding reserves. Starved hatchlings die too."

They looked at me. My glove hovered over the pool. Heat from the surface met the cold of my crystal, humming at the edge of pain. I thought of hatchlings, the Exiles, and the heart breathing behind us.

"If we do this, we seal it after," I said. "And we take only what one pearl can carry."

Echo-Hand nodded slowly. "Seal well, and perhaps it forgives."

Lis dipped the vial, fluid swirling inside like trapped stars. Above her, a crack split with a sharp snap. A bead of slurry dropped onto motes clinging to the wall. They ignited. A shadow bud opened, unfurling into something manta-shaped with too many fins and jaws splitting twice. It screamed and lunged. Its fins grazed Lis's armor, burning a streak.

I flared a water lens, catching its next strike. Lis swung her cannon, shattering a fin. I kicked a mirror shard into its sonar path. The shriek bounced back, folding it in half. The creature collapsed into ash.

Rejah's voice stayed calm. "Shadow spike contained."

Ashekan growled, "Seal it. Now."

I knelt, spinning cold currents until my shoulders burned. Veshra pressed a shard into my palm, and together we set it into the wall. Frost webbed across the crack, locking the vein closed. Lis capped the vial and slipped it into foam. "That's all we take," I said, voice hoarse.

The runes brightened briefly, then dimmed, as if tasting our theft and choosing to sleep.

We climbed back to the rail. Frost on the sphere's cables dripped like tears. The heart felt our presence. As we rose, I looked back. The runes glowed again, slow and steady. The sphere exhaled, and the ripple ran up the rails.

"I think it's counting again," I whispered.

No one argued.

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