The cliff wind knocked the breath out of Ren and then gave it back in thin, cold packets.
He crouched on the lip of rock, palms flat on stone sweating from effort.
The pendant thudded at his sternum like a trapped insect.
Five minutes — the Echo wanted five minutes — and his body counted down in ragged, hungry pulses.
"Breathe in—fill low—hold," the Echo's voice threaded into his head, patient and precise.
Ren pushed his lungs until muscles sang and the world blurred at the edges.
Each inhale drew from something that used to belong to him.
Each exhale returned a lightness that felt bought with cost.
At four minutes ten seconds his vision shimmered into gold, an odd halo over the sea of clouds.
At four minutes thirty seconds his legs buckled and the stones rushed up to meet him.
He blacked out with the taste of metal on his tongue.
When he came back the air smelled of damp apple and old wool.
Someone sat on a nearby rock, legs dangling, a half-eaten apple in one hand.
His coat was patched with a stack of mismatched cloth pockets.
"You passed out," the man said, not like a question.
He had round glasses that magnified curious eyes.
"Really spectacular, actually. Most people don't faint with such flair."
Ren pushed up on one elbow and swallowed.
The cliff spun slow, polite.
His temples hummed; the scar under his jaw sang like a tight wire.
"Who—" he croaked.
"Lin."
The man tilted his head and offered the apple without waiting.
"Former celestial archaeologist, now freelance contrarian. You probably want your mouth washed out with salt, but the apple will do in a pinch."
Kira's voice cut the space behind Ren—sharp and relieved.
"You found him?"
"Yup. Fell off his meditation throne," Lin said.
He took another bite and watched Ren like he was an interesting specimen.
"You should not be meditating out here if you plan on keeping your spleen."
Ren blinked, hand finding the pendant at his throat without thought.
The fossil scale lay cool beneath his fingers, ordinary metal again.
The mountain air pressed at his lungs like a soft fist.
"Why are you here?" Ren demanded, standing unevenly.
Lin's smile tightened.
"I happen to follow oddities. You made quite a lightshow yesterday. A Devourer and then you—well. Interesting combination. I study the seams."
Kira folded arms, boots planted in defiant ruin.
"You watched the attack?"
"I watched from the ridge," Lin said.
"I like the drama. Preferably without the death. Those fog-devils bother my field notes."
He dented the apple with a tooth.
"But you—why are you burning yourself like a lantern, boy?"
Ren tried to keep his jaw steady.
"Training. The Echo wants the Form held five minutes. I nearly did it."
Lin laughed, the sound low and dry.
"No. You nearly burned yourself. Your flow is a leaky bucket. You suck from your reserve like a starving man at a well. The sky is full—channel it, don't drown in it."
Ren bristled.
"You mean I'm doing it wrong."
"You are doing it like a child who found his father's hammer and tried to break a mountain," Lin said.
"Technique, not consumption. You do not feed the storm with your blood."
Kira's eyes flashed a challenge.
"And who are you to say 'technique' to a boy who split a Devourer in half with his bare—"
Lin held up both hands.
"Calm. I am someone who used to dig up what gods threw away. I know the sound a true focus makes. Your pendant sings—poorly tuned, like an instrument struck by a beginner."
He tapped the pendant with one finger, not rude but exacting.
"It hums of synchrony, but it answers at all hours. That's bad."
Ren tightened his grip.
The pendant quivered, tiny and insistent.
The scar on his jaw felt like a compass needle.
"You mean it attracted the Devourer?" Ren asked.
Lin's glasses flashed.
"Attracted? Perhaps. Amplified? Definitely. You used it in the dark like a lamp. Lamps call things that love light. You can survive a skirmish. You cannot survive being a lighthouse for monsters."
Kira dropped to one knee and poked at the stone beside Ren.
"What do you want from us, Lin? Are you a spy for the Guild? A treasure hunter?"
Lin's face folded into something like amusement and sorrow.
"Names are boring. I'm an archaeologist with scars. I was kicked out of the institute for asking what happens when the legends don't tidy up their messes. I follow fractures—little tears where the world leaks. You made a loud hole."
Ren's head throbbed.
The lake of exhaustion in his limbs lapped at ankles, then knees.
"You mean the pendant is—"
"A focus," Lin finished.
"Not a charm. A focus of synchrony. It binds a channel. Used with care, you steer winds. Used like a nightlight, you call hungry things."
Kira's jaw worked.
"So what do we do? Hide it? Break it?"
Lin popped the apple core into his mouth and savored the last bite.
"Neither is elegant. Breaking usually leaves shards that sing differently. Hiding turns it into a rumor. Best is tuning—and teaching you not to drink from your marrow."
"You can tune it?" Ren's voice held an edge of desperate hope.
Lin shrugged.
"Maybe. If you listen. But I don't do surgeries on souls for free."
Kira spat a laugh.
"We don't have coin."
"No."
Lin's eyes flicked to the pendant and then to the scar under Ren's jaw, slow and patient.
"You have something better: a promise and a past. Both make good currency if you're willing to trade time."
Ren swallowed.
The memory of his father's map and the torn journal burned behind his eyes.
Lin's brows rose.
"Also—be careful with your vow to fix things. People who owe you favors tend to get involved in ways you don't expect."
Kira shot Lin a look sharp enough to cut rope.
"Meaning?"
Lin folded his hands, then tapped the rim of his glasses.
"The Guild men sniffed today. The Split Hammer may be more than a rumor. Your pendant isn't a trinket. It's a key, a signpost. Tune it, or it will become a beacon."
Ren's hand went instinctively to the pendant.
The fossil's grooves pressed into his palm.
The Echo's interface flickered faintly at the edge of his vision.
"Kira," Ren said, voice small and steady with a new kind of resolve, "I'll learn to tune it."
Kira's lips twitched into something like a grin.
"You better, or I'll weld your ears shut."
Lin rose and dusted his knees with the cliff's dust.
He looked at Ren with a scholar's pity and a thief's interest.
"One more thing," he said quietly.
"You think pirates are the only ones who'll come? They're blunt instruments. If you keep using a misaligned focus, you invite things with finer tools—men and monsters who will follow the song."
Ren rolled his shoulder, the tendon singing like a small bell.
The cliff air tasted of salt and cold and apples crushed in a pocket.
Lin pointed at the pendant, slow and deliberate.
"This pendant is not a simple amulet. It is a focus of synchrony. And it's miscalibrated. If you continue using it in the dark the way you do, it will attract more than pirates. It will call the Devourers like a beacon."