Candlecross's flame hall settled after the brood-purge like a choir between hymns—breathing, not empty. The wick-trees rose from the pouring floor in bronze trunks and linen fronds heavy with drying tapers. Above, a combwork of glass feed-channels led toward the gate's vast candle crown. Some wicks still held a blue core like swallowed frost; certain channel joints sweated soot the way a lie sweats under oath.
The chandler-priestess touched a scorch mark, fingers waxed and steady. "The trees remember wrong prayers," she rasped. "We need them taught again."
Lord Caelion fell in two paces to my left, helm under his arm, six Dawnwardens behind him with mirror bosses angled low. He was careful in the way Aurelia likes—super nice without being a hazard.
"If you prefer," he said, voice soft under our house rule, "we'll hold reflectors on the glassing bends—low pitch—until you call echo."
Aurelia's shield found my back by that exact inch that keeps a world upright. "Edge-casts only," she reminded, eyes on the rafters. "No bursts. We re-teach the room."
I traced two hair-thin Sunlines along the lintels and tipped a polite Peal into the lanterns—Etiquette Canticle, house clause: No loud Novas in a house of wax. Aid is alms.
┌──────────── PRE-ENGAGEMENT ───────────┐
│ Eirion — HP: 13,040 / 13,180 MP: 3,940 / 21,100 │
│ Aegis Hymn: 23% Oathbond: Linked (~88%) │
│ Buffs: Wayleave (narrow), Etiquette (hall) │
│ Aurelia — HP: 12,210 / 12,460 │
│ Allies: Dawnwardens (6) — reflectors ready │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
Under the wick-trees, old Forfeit Annex ribbons clung to root collars—black circles that wouldn't close. From their shadows, pale wax-borers nosed the linen, gnawing devotion into debt.
SYSTEM: Residual Corruptions
• Wax-Borer Grubs (Dark) — gnaw wick intent; spawn blue-drip.
• Soot-Vine (Dark) — chokes glass joints; raises Shiver risk.
• Annex Ribbons — try to reclassify HoT as debt at source.
"Name the rule," Aurelia said.
"Hospitium Radiant," I breathed, stamping our clause across the base plates of each wick-tree: Emergency aid is sanctuary; no force may impede it. The linen fronds remembered alms instead of accounts. Wax-borers shivered, confused, and tried to be candleflies instead of clerks.
Caelion lifted two fingers. "Reflectors—hold the manifold elbows. Quiet hands."
They obeyed—super nice and precise—mirrors catching my hum without adding heat where heat would sin.
I dipped Lysithea to the top trough's wax skin and laid a fine Sunline like a vein. "Wick Peal," I murmured, tapping an edge-Nova down the blade. Tone entered wax, not air; returned a low hum that calmed breath, steadied flame, and lowered Flashover risk. We walked that hum from tree to tree.
At each collar I looped Thread and wrote Counter-Signature in small, legible script: A wick is for giving light, not eating time. — Wickbinding. Blue cores guttered to gold, one by one.
The soot-vines around the glass bends tightened, resentful of law. Shiver tickled the panes like dangerous laughter.
"Glass next," Aurelia said.
I traced twin Sunlines up a bellglass jar and Annotated our last shared Mend between us—Bond Mirror—so reflections would carry our Oathbond cadence back into the channels. Then I cut a clean Counter-Signature along the joint: Minutes given are alms. — Minute Replevin. The soot-vine failed to remember its job and slipped off like a wrong thought.
Overhead, the crown-feed tried a petty trick—dribbling blue toward the gate in thin, sly threads.
"Collapse their sip," Aurelia said, steady as bronze.
I widened my stance and drew a ring of stub-candles around the manifold, wicks trimmed to the same polite height. "Wax Sundial," I breathed—Sunwheel Bulwark variant—and fed it tone through bellglass. The little flames became gnomons. Timing snapped to true noon within the ring; Blue had nowhere to be but gold.
The hall liked that.
Wax-borers—as they do—chose violence over growing up. The nearest frond sagged with their weight; one grub burst and sprayed a fleck of blue-drip toward Aurelia's cheek.
Close quarters insisted. She didn't swing; she stepped in, rim angled to kiss the blow, forearm turning the weight, hip making the floor honest beneath her boots. I answered in Tricant:
Mend into her elbow where parry torque lives,
Smite shaving the borer cluster along the seam that wouldn't spill,
Thread stitching a ladder rung I'd need in three breaths.
Soot-Fall hissed from a beam. I refused air and cast into glass. "Prism Mercy—silent split." Three sub-lines slid along jar lips at shin, heart, eye—no noise, no shatter—snipping vines like bad stitches.
"Status," Aurelia clipped, eyes scanning for the next hinge.
┌──────────── HALL OVERLAY ───────────┐
│ Oathbond: 90% (steady) │
│ Aegis Hymn: 37% (surge available) │
│ Flashover risk: ↓ Low (Wick Peal) │
│ Crown-feed coherence: 82% → 94% │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
At the far wick-tree, an Annex Ribbon fought back—tightened like a tourniquet over the collar and printed the word pending across my HoT.
I knelt. "Inquest Halo." Suture Bridge + Bond Mirror + Peal became a polite interrogation ring. Clauses flowered over the ribbon:
Custody of Overflow
Chargeable Minute
Appointment to Rename Alms
"No," I said, and wrote a tiny Counter-Signature beneath, handwriting precise as the priestess's needles: Policy does not outrank mercy. I cut the circle. The ribbon loosened and let go.
Caelion stayed super nice about not talking while I worked. When he spoke, it arrived as logistics dressed like respect. "If you prefer, I can hold a cold mirror above the crown-feed to keep the hum without raising the wax."
"Please," I said, and he did—angles exact, hands quiet, praise swallowed in favor of function.
We climbed into the crown-walk under the gate arch, where wind chewed at flame and the crown fed itself through a hundred little glass throats. Three bends still leaked blue in pulses like a nervous habit.
"Pin them," Aurelia said.
I set Bond Mirrors on opposing panes so the crown saw us and our cadence, not its panic. Then I wrote the house clause the city had earned tonight across the entire manifold with a careful, low Peal:
"No loud Novas in a house of wax. Minutes given are charity. Aid is alms."
The Chorus walked the sentence through glass. The last three blue pulses lifted their little chins, remembered their jobs, and became gold.
I did not spend the Aegis in a flourish. I poured it as Reservoir Mercy into the wax lanes where night-shift candlers would pass. Warmth settled like a second apron.
Silence—good, shaped—returned.
┌──────────── POST-REHALLOW ───────────┐
│ Wick-trees: Re-hallowed (4/4) │
│ Crown-feed channels: Re-hallowed │
│ Residuals cleared: Wax-borers (22), │
│ Soot-vines (7), Annex ribbons (3) │
│ Flashover events: 0 (PASS) │
│ HP — Eirion: 13,120 / 13,180 │
│ HP — Aurelia: 12,330 / 12,460 │
│ MP: 2,760 / 21,100 │
│ Aegis Hymn: 19% residual │
│ Oathbond Harmony (peak): 92% (PASS) │
│ New/Rank-Ups: Minute Replevin (R2), │
│ Wickbinding (R2), Wax Sundial (R1→2) │
└───────────────────────────────────────┘
At floor level, the chandler-priestess laid both palms on a wick-tree plate and breathed. "It's right," she said, voice breaking like hard sugar melting. "It was wrong so long we forgot this sound."
The System laid its coin.
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ CANDLECROSS — RE-HALLOW COMPLETE │
├───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Objective: Re-hallow wick-trees — ✔│
│ Objective: Re-hallow crown-feed — ✔│
│ Bonus: No flashover — PASS │
│ Oathbond ≥ 70% — PASS │
├───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Rewards: │
│ ▸ EXP +34,000 │
│ ▸ City Scrip +200 │
│ ▸ Relic: Wax-Root Signet (clean) │
│ ▸ Mastery: Counter-Signature +1 │
│ ▸ Mastery: Peal Weave (glass/wax) +1│
└───────────────────────────────────┘
We finished the small ends. Thread teased out hairline fractures from glass feet. Sunline bows rode the doorframes with the clause we'd written: No loud Novas in a house of wax; minutes gifted are charity. I left a last Wick Peal hum barely audible—breath for the hall to borrow when men forgot their gentleness.
Caelion stepped the right distance, mirrors at rest, helm tucked, voice low. "Your law held without spectacle," he said, catching himself within the Canticle. "If you prefer, I'll keep two reflectors at the crown till dawn—no chatter. Only tone."
"I prefer that," I said, unable not to smile. "Thank you."
Aurelia examined him for flourishes; found none; let a small nod serve as medal. "Useful," she said. Then she touched two knuckles to the nearest bronze plate—her version of amen.
We stepped beneath the gate's candle crown. It burned the color of patient bread. Outside, Candlecross followed its timetable again: shutters breathing open; carts thinking about being carts; a child practicing a bow at a flame and getting it right on the second try.
"Still guarding my six?" I asked, because light words keep law supple.
"In a city where hours were trying to grow teeth?" Aurelia said, dry as good bread. "Especially."
We walked out under the steady crown, our commas falling behind us like polite stars, and the road ahead reading itself toward morning.