Kael stopped walking mid-step.
Not hesitation. Not choice.
His body went rigid like a blade being sheathed by force.
Astra felt it through her wrist where his hand held her—an abrupt, involuntary tightening that turned into a clamp. His fingers didn't just grip; they locked, like the tendons in his forearm had been commanded to forget softness existed.
His wrist crest flared under the tunnel lamp—harder than it had in House Veyrn's halls, hotter than when Rusk had pinned him with stand-down.
This was different.
This wasn't a superior officer pressing a leash.
This was a home signal reaching through Astra's collar and finding a new handle.
Astra's throat tightened in reflex.
Her interface snapped bright, merciless in its calm.
HOUSE VEYRN: ANCHOR RECALL INITIATEDTARGET: KAEL RAITHEVECTOR: SUBJECT COLLAR LINKCOMPLIANCE: PENDINGWARNING: GOVERNOR LOAD SPIKE
Kael's jaw clenched. A fine tremor ran through his shoulders like his nervous system was trying to decide whether to fight or obey.
Astra's stomach dropped.
The collar wasn't just dragging her anymore.
It was dragging him—through her.
Orin's voice cut low in front of them. "Don't stare. Move."
Juno turned, eyes sharp. "He's locking."
Kael swallowed, throat working. He did not look at Astra. He stared down the tunnel as if the stone itself had become an enemy he could shoot.
His voice came out rough, controlled by sheer discipline. "It's… pulling."
Astra's chest tightened.
The pull wasn't on her spine this time. It was on the link inside her collar—the Null Anchor clause tightening like a noose around its own collateral.
Astra had put his name there.
Astra had let the chapel write him in.
Now House Veyrn was yanking the thread to see what snapped first.
Kael's fingers finally loosened enough that he could move again, but the movement was wrong—micro-shifts in his posture pointing him subtly back the way they'd come, toward the node Dorian had chosen like a stage.
Astra tasted metal.
"No," she breathed.
Kael's eyes flicked to her mouth, then away, jaw flexing harder. "I'm not choosing it."
His wrist crest flared again.
Pain flashed across his face—quick, swallowed immediately. He didn't give the tunnel the satisfaction of a sound.
Astra felt something cold slide along her throat.
Not the collar's usual obedience pressure.
A new mechanism.
A new route.
Her interface updated with quiet cruelty.
ANCHOR RECALL: USING STABILIZER PATHNOTE: TOUCH-BASED ANCHORING INCREASES PULL
Astra went still.
Kael's touch at her throat—his anchor—was now a leash for him.
She'd asked him to keep her from breaking.
House Veyrn had turned that mercy into a handle.
Kael saw her face change. "What."
Astra swallowed. "If you anchor me with touch, it pulls you harder."
Kael's mouth tightened into something dangerous. "Then I don't touch."
Astra's collar pulsed as if offended by the loss.
Her legs threatened to wobble, but she forced them steady. She wasn't falling. Not now. Not with the system watching like a hungry clerk.
Orin's hand snapped out and shoved a hanging cloth aside, revealing a narrower passage. "In. Now."
Juno was already moving, dropping one disk behind them without looking. It hummed once, then faded into silence.
Kael hesitated—half a beat too long—eyes blank with internal pressure.
Astra stepped into him, close enough to steal his breath, and put her palm flat to his chest again. Not grabbing. Not pleading.
Just contact.
A clear choice.
"Move," she said softly, and made the word sound like an agreement between them, not an order from any crest.
Kael's eyes flicked down to her hand.
Then to her face.
He nodded once—tiny, violent consent to keep living.
He moved.
They slipped into the narrow passage, Orin leading, Juno behind, and the seam closed with a soft scrape of stone on stone.
The world compressed.
Close walls. Low ceiling. A draft that smelled like rust and old incense.
Astra's collar tugged, confused by the interference. The Null Anchor hummed like a held breath.
Kael's wrist crest still burned.
He kept walking, but the wrong pull kept trying to turn his shoulders.
Astra could see it now—his fight, not theatrical, not loud. The way he forced each step to remain aligned with the direction Orin chose, not the direction House Veyrn demanded.
Discipline as warfare.
It would cost him.
Astra's interface flickered again, adding a line that made her stomach drop.
GOVERNOR LOAD: HIGHESTIMATED FAILURE: 00:06:10FAILURE OUTCOME: SEIZURE / COMPLIANCE COLLAPSE
Six minutes.
That was what Dorian had bought by yanking a thread.
Six minutes until Kael's body stopped being his.
Astra's chest tightened with fury so sharp it tasted sweet.
Orin stopped abruptly at a junction where three tunnels met. He pressed his palm to a scar-sigil. The air thickened for a heartbeat, muffling everything like the tunnel swallowed noise.
"Anchor recall is a pull line," Orin said without looking back. "It needs a clean route. We dirty the route."
Juno shot Astra a glance. "How loud can you get without spiking trace again?"
Astra's mouth curved bitterly. "Define loud."
Orin's smile was thin. "Define alive."
Kael's breath was controlled but shallow. Sweat gathered at his hairline. His jaw stayed clenched like he was biting down on pain rather than letting it show.
Astra stepped closer to him—not to touch his throat, not to give House Veyrn a better handle—but to be close enough that he could hear her without raising his voice.
"Kael," she murmured.
His eyes flicked to her mouth, then locked on her eyes. "Don't."
Astra's brows lifted. "Don't what."
Kael's voice came out rough. "Don't look at me like you're about to sacrifice something."
Astra's throat tightened.
He read her too well.
She swallowed and forced the truth into a cleaner shape. "I'm going to rewrite my response again."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Astra—your trace—"
"I know," she snapped quietly. Then softened it, because he wasn't the enemy. "I know."
Orin tapped the scar-sigil again impatiently. "If you're going to cut your own throat in code, do it before the Church finds us."
Juno muttered, "Poetry's later."
Kael's hand tightened around Astra's wrist again—reflexive. He didn't touch her collar. He didn't risk giving the pull more leverage.
Astra could feel the restraint in it, and it burned.
Heat in the middle of panic was a cruel thing. It didn't ask permission from timing. It simply arrived when closeness did.
Astra used it anyway.
Fuel.
She focused inward, on the interface.
WRITE (SELF): ENABLEDWARNING: WATERMARK ACTIVETRACE: 47.1%
Too high already. Too visible.
But she didn't have the luxury of safe.
She selected the target panel carefully:
ANCHOR LINK RESPONSE (SELF)
A sub-menu unfolded—new, ugly, clearly created by the Null Anchor clause.
IF ANCHOR RECALL INITIATED → DEFAULT: ALLOW COLLATERAL COMPLIANCE
Allow collateral compliance.
That meant the system would interpret Kael's governor collapse as "delivery."
Dorian didn't need her to walk into his hands.
He could pull Kael through her collar until Kael's leash did the rest.
Astra's stomach turned.
Kael's voice went low, as if he sensed what she was seeing. "Don't you dare make it worse."
Astra didn't look away from the interface. "Then give me a better option."
Kael's jaw clenched, eyes burning. "We break the route."
Astra's breath shook. "How."
Orin answered instead, voice flat. "We go through a dead conduit. Dominion signals rot there. Lumen too."
Juno lifted a brow. "Dead conduit's unstable."
Orin shrugged. "So is he."
Kael didn't react to being discussed like equipment. That was how Astra knew it was bad. He was too busy fighting the pull inside his own spine.
Astra's heart pounded.
A dead conduit might degrade the recall route enough to stop the anchor pull.
But it might also degrade the Null Anchor clause itself.
And if the clause broke, the collateral consequence could bite.
Pain transfer.
Forfeit crest access.
Unknown.
Astra's throat went cold.
Orin gestured down the left tunnel. "This way."
They moved.
Fast.
The tunnel sloped downward. The air cooled. The stone changed—older, rougher, damp that smelled like iron and old fire.
Astra's collar tugged, confused. The pull of RETURN was distant, but the anchor recall pressure in Kael was not.
His steps began to falter—tiny stutters like his body was fighting two metronomes.
Astra stayed close, hand still in his grip.
Not because she couldn't walk.
Because if he collapsed, she wanted to be the one who caught him before the system did.
Orin stopped at a low archway etched with crude sigils. Not Dominion geometry. Not Lumen scripture.
Underchain scars.
"This is it," Orin said. "Dead conduit."
The air beyond the arch looked darker than the tunnel should allow, like light refused to go in.
Juno's voice tightened. "Once we step through, signals drop hard. If you need help—"
Orin cut her off. "No help. That's the point."
Kael's jaw clenched. Sweat ran down his temple. He did not wipe it.
He looked at Astra—not her throat, not her collar.
Her eyes.
"If I lock," he said, voice rough, "don't let them use it."
Astra swallowed. "I won't."
Kael's mouth twitched—almost a smile, quickly killed. "Liar."
Astra's breath hitched.
She hated him for seeing her so clearly.
She leaned closer, voice low and steady. "Then stay conscious long enough to call me out."
Kael's eyes burned.
He nodded once.
They stepped into the dead conduit.
The world went quiet in a way that felt wrong.
Not the Null Zone's heavy silence.
This was absence.
As if the city's entire nervous system had been cut.
Astra's collar warmed—then faltered, like it didn't know who to call for instructions. The pull of RETURN faded into a faint ache.
Kael's wrist crest dimmed.
For a heartbeat, Astra thought it had worked.
Then Kael's body jolted.
Not a seizure—something more precise.
Like a system searching for signal and finding only itself.
His shoulders locked, then released. His breathing hitched.
Astra's interface flickered, dim and glitchy, but readable.
SIGNAL: NEAR ZEROANCHOR RECALL: SEARCHING…GOVERNOR LOAD: UNSTABLEWARNING: INTERNAL FEEDBACK LOOP