The rules in the air were older than the stone under their feet.
The iron rings in the corner still held a little heat from work. Frost thinned under the Mist Horse's hooves and went away like a thought that didn't want to be remembered. Four Predators held the rim in an even line. None crowded. None postured. It was the kind of courtesy that meant there would be none later.
"We speak before we hunt," said the one with a small cross-scratch carved above its left socket. "Return the knot."
Kade kept his hand low. The new ring under his skin didn't glow—it didn't need to. "No."
The rightmost tilted its head by the width of a breath. "A short answer."
"A short day," Euthymia said. Weather, not edge.
Nor put his boots where the lip had held last time and did not look down. The brand in his palm pulsed once like a refusal and settled into an ache he had already spent.
[CLAIM — Bearer Sigil (NOR)]
TOLL persists: –Grip / Pain spikes on exertion
The marked one studied Kade's mouth as if words had weight. "You made a tool you cannot afford. Give it back."
"It's paid for," Kade said.
"Not by you."
Kade let that sit. The three Sky Hunters above rode slow ellipses, learning the new geometry from a distance. The platform's slope leaned toward the speakers and then, slowly and stubbornly, changed its mind.
"Currents shifting," Euthy said. "They'll pinch the lanes."
The marked one didn't refute it. "Terms," it said instead, tone dry as linen. "We hunt. You run. If any of you cross the fourth ring before the mark is down, we take the knot and the one who carries it."
"What mark," Nor asked.
"The one we put on you," said the second from the right—mild as if naming a weather front.
"Not three," Euthy told Kade, fingers brushing his sleeve. Pressure and angle, not comfort.
"Not three," he said.
The marked one moved a half pace. The air around them pressed in—a soft palm on every shoulder. It wasn't a law like Vox's rings had been. It was older and lazier. It expected obedience because it always got it.
[PACK ABILITY — Chorus Pull]
On call "Mark": wind cords braid; targets within 8 m risk designate
Counter: line break / Dominion touch / edge sever
"Run," the marked one said. "We will speak no more."
They didn't run. They moved—the honest difference between panic and planning.
Kade took the Loom corner out of habit. The triangle was dead; the iron sat patient. The Knot under his skin hummed the way a coin hums when you spin it on a table, asking for work. The air tasted like static.
"Left—high—inner?" he said.
"Not yet," Euthy answered. "They'll steal it."
She was right. The marked one put a heel on the rim and the stone's drift changed a degree toward it.
[PREDATOR — Edge Claim]
Rim bias within 3 m: +30%
Anchor difficulty (edges): +30%
Kade tested a Tie to the left ring anyway. The filament dulled against iron, bright through air, dulled again. It bit—and slid off as if the metal had been buttered.
[Tie failed] — Edge Claim contested; anchor rejected
"Save your breath," Nor said, catching the small shake in Kade's wrist without looking at him.
"Please," Kade told the Horse.
It set both forehooves and breathed cold into the nearest ribbon. A path shaped for a breath and a half.
"Move on my count," Euthy said. "Two… one."
They took the thin lane together, not fast. The Predators let them go because that was the rule: speak, then hunt. Cruel, because time counted in the speakers' favor.
The first Chorus Pull struck as they reached the broken-tooth platform beyond.
"Mark," the line said—four throats, one angle—and the wind braided itself into cords that wanted wrists and throats.
Kade felt the tug as attention more than force. He ducked and the cord missed by a thought. Nor set his hips. Pain bit his brand-scar and he bit back. Euthy didn't duck. She stepped into the pull and drew her own blood with a nail across her palm. When the cord touched her forearm she wrote on herself—two small, curved strokes, bright and wet. The cord hesitated—only that. It slid past.
She lifted two fingers: two seconds. Kade nodded, set a Tie into the air just ahead of their toes—not on iron, not on rim—to the shape of the current, and drew. The lane bent toward the next point that would hold. The Horse put its weight into the bend and painted floors that lasted an extra heartbeat.
They didn't get a lane without paying.
The second Mark came from the far right. The cord found Nor and slid up the good forearm like a sleeve. He didn't flinch. He turned his body until the light caught the braid and it spat weak sparks against the old burn in his palm. Pain made his sight worse and clearer at once. The cord pressed at his shoulder and slackened, confused by a signal it couldn't read.
"Still with you," he said. Calm as if describing weather.
"Good," Kade said. Air was arithmetic. He made sentences small to afford both.
Residuum whispered up and down the Knot as they worked.
[Residuum] –4% → 58%
TOLL — Breath Tax: O₂ margin –; vertigo mild
The Predators closed the box. Two biased the rim lanes. One stepped up and owned the high path by standing there. The marked one walked the line between Kade and the Loom corner ahead and turned stone by existing.
"Not three," Euthy said again, softer. Her eyes weren't on iron anymore. They were on the edges of nothing.
"Understood," Kade said.
He put a Tie not to a ring but to the memory of where wind had been a second ago. It stuck the way a palm sticks to glass when someone is watching. He drew just enough to make the slip their friend.
Then the marked one changed the game. It reached behind itself and put a hand into air at shoulder height—held—and spoke one word no one had taught Kade.
"Stay."
The current in front of them stilled in a long, thin sheet.
[PACK ABILITY — Edge Sanction]
Within 6 m, specified current locks (5 s); Ties to that vector break
Counter: Sever off-vector / Dominion mark on caller
Euthy swore once, the way someone does when a tool breaks. "They'll snap anything you put there."
"Then I won't put it there," Kade said.
He shifted right, felt the sheet try to hold him like a polite door. He cut Sever down the side of it—not through. Cutting through wastes breath. He cut along, taking the crisp off the Sanction until it behaved like air. It opened a hand-wide slit.
"Two at my back," Nor said.
"I have one," Euthy said.
"Got the other," Kade said.
They didn't raise voices. They gave inventory.
The Hunters slid low, opportunists on rented air. Euthy stepped under one and pressed a gloved palm along the seam where wing met chest. When she drew back, blood slicked her fingers. She wrote two marks on the membrane as it passed her again—small, raw shapes.
"Hold," she told the animal, stable-hand soft.
It did, for two heartbeats. Enough for a line to land.
They cleared the sheet and found a better slope. The Mist Horse made a small noise of work. Kade's chest argued with the idea of arguing and chose function.
The Predators didn't rush. They were already where rushing would have taken them. The marked one set another Sanction higher and wider. Kade didn't try to break this one. He set a Tie below it, narrow, and drew so the floor came to them. In the next corner the rings whispered L–H–I; not yet.
"Lane left," Euthy said. "Ten steps."
"Too steep," Nor said.
"Seven," she corrected.
They took seven. The slope argued; they disagreed; the argument went on.
"Mark," said the chorus, closer. Cords braided tight and came clean for Euthymia. This time they didn't want wrists. They wanted her throat.
She put her forearm across her own neck while going to a knee and let the cord hit meat under glove. Her blood was already up. She drew a sign on the cord as it tried to be a hand.
It slowed. It didn't stop.
"Kade," she said. Not plea. Fact.
He didn't yank. He'd lose. He tied the cord to the platform's knee-bolt instead and drew sideways. The cord had to choose: pull her or pull stone. It chose wrong a beat, stretched thin. She slipped out the way water slips when you stop telling it what shape to be.
The marked one watched with no expression. If admiration lived in its body it had always kept it private.
Another Sanction arrived like a door closing in a quiet house. Kade felt the air dull at his ankles and knew they were late. The path they needed stilled; the rim they wanted tried to become someone else's idea. The Loom corner ahead sat calm. He could feel the sequence in his teeth.
"Left—high—inner," Euthy said. Not a request.
The marked one tilted its head by a degree.
Kade threaded the left ring. The filament bit; light brightened in a way that wasn't light. He counted a half breath. He set the high and felt the lean change the numbers in his ribs. He didn't argue. He took the inner on a step the Horse made for him and the world agreed to be honest in a small triangle again.
[AEOLIAN LOOM — tensioned]
Stability: +4.0 s
Current shaping: minor
The Chorus Pull chose that moment to mark all three.
"Mark."
The cords braided and came as a fan. There wasn't room to slip. Euthy raised her palms, blood ready, and wrote left–right on the air where they'd land. The cords faltered by the thickness of a thought. Nor set his shoulder and took the rest like a man taking a door in a flood—low, braced, ready to slip rather than break.
Kade made his own pull busy.
"Tie."
"Draw."
"Sever."
He didn't fight the braid. He misled it—gave it a path to complete that wasn't a wrist or throat. Cords like careful ropes slid past his ribs and pulled at nothing that wanted to go.
For seven heartbeats the triangle held and so did they. The Predators read the rule and stepped into it anyway. The marked one crossed as if iron were suggestion. Kade cut Sever where edge met edge and the step stuttered—not a fall, an admission.