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Chapter 274: The Echo That Stayed
When Ember collapsed, it didn’t feel like a fall, It felt like being unplugged.Cut off from the current she hadn’t even realized she’d been riding, Callen’s breath, the tether, the fractured echo-field. All of it snapped out of her at once, like a trapdoor yanked out from under her soul.Her body struck the mud hard, Eyes open, But the light inside her was off, Skov was the first to move. He ran.Dropped to his knees beside her and rolled her onto her back. “Ember. Look at me.”She didn’t blink, Savi was behind him a second later, spiral band scanning her vitals, but the readings flickered, pulsed, then flatlined “No pulse.”Skov’s voice cracked. “That’s not possible.”Amari knelt over Callen. “It is if she gave it back.”And she had The breath. The Root fire. The spark that wasn’t hers, She’d given it to Callen, But Callen wasn’t moving either.The Circle formed tight around them. Silent, No panic, Just stillness the kind that came after the end of a storm, when the damage couldn’t
Chapter 273: Breathing Borrowed Fire
The moment Ember opened her mouth and Callen’s breath passed through her lips, the world shifted, Not visibly, Not with tremor or collapse, But inside the air itself, as though the Riftline rewrote gravity to obey something ancient, something feral.Skov froze mid-step, Savi dropped her spiral band as if it suddenly burned, Amari went pale, whispering something no one could hear, The First scattered, not gliding fleeing.The Second’s hum surged so loud the Witnesses collapsed to their knees, And Ember… wasn’t breathing anymore, The breath in her body didn’t belong to her, It moved in rhythms foreign to her lungs slow, measured, thick like tar exhaled in pulses.Her eyes stayed open but unfocused, One hand still gripped Callen’s limp wrist, The Circle held its breath, Waiting, Watching, Not one dared touch her. Inside her chest, Ember was awake. But not… present.She stood in a space layered with pulse and echo. The floor beneath her flickered with overlapping memory, a thousand spiral
Chapter 272: A Body Not Yet Ash
When the light vanished, silence reigned, No pulse, No static, Not even the old hum of the Second threading through the Driftline Just blackness. Thick, hot, and wet.Like breath trapped inside lungs that had forgotten how to exhale, Ember blinked, Nothing, No walls, No sky.Her hand, the one that caught the blade, hung limp at her side. Spiral stone gone. The groove that once hummed beneath her skin was burned away. Just flesh now. Raw and quiet.Callen lay beside her, Chest rising, Barely, Face bloodied, eyes closed, whispering something so faint it could’ve been breath or memory. The voice returned.Not the rig. Not the siphon. Something older, Older than Emotia, Older than MARROW, Older than hush.It whispered not into their ears but into the empty places between thoughts, where memory couldn’t reach, and forgetting had already claimed its price. “Two touched the cost. Only one may return. Choose.”Ember’s knees sank into the strange ground, not stone, not mist, not soil. It felt
Chapter 271: Pulled Into the Breach
Callen's boots didn’t scrape as he was dragged backward, They lifted, ripped from the ground as if the very air behind the gate had opened its jaws and decided his name tasted like fire.The mist split in two, The siphon’s shattered coils snapped wide again like they’d only pretended to fail, and now they wanted him back. Ember’s scream ripped from her throat before she knew she’d opened her mouth. “CALLEN!”But he was already gone, One blink, A red smear in the mist. Then nothing. Skov dove forward, spiral stone in hand, fury in his teeth, but Amari tackled him before he could hit the breach. “You go in like that, it eats you.”“She’s going in!” he shouted, jerking his head toward Ember.But Ember hadn’t moved, She was kneeling in the mud, spiral stone trembling in her fist, mouth clenched so tight her molars cracked, The First hovered inches above her shoulder, flickering red for the first time since the Driftfall.The Second’s hum dropped to a frequency so low the air shook, A warn
Chapter 270: A Spiral Buried Deep
The siphon claws did not pierce flesh, They folded around it, coils of iron and old Drift rig pulse tightening like breath pulled through a wire no spine was built to endure, Inside the closed gate, Callen didn’t scream.He stood still as the claws locked across his ribs and the hum coiled down into his marrow, The child beside him didn’t cry, just pressed his spiral stone harder to his chest and whispered: “Hold.”Callen’s voice bled into the mist, teeth clenched against the static curling in his lungs. “You’ll snap your teeth before I hush.”Outside, the Drift corridor cracked, Savi’s boot struck sparks as she scrambled to brace the now-buckling arch. Skov shouted something wordless, fury and grit wrapped in resonance.Amari, spiral stone clutched like a weapon, drove her shoulder against the iron seam again and again, jaw clenched so tight blood dotted her lips.Ember’s eyes didn’t blink. She pressed her palm, bleeding to the cold gate, spiral stone humming beneath skin cut open b
Chapter 269: The Cost That Bites
Gate 14’s breach didn’t just close, It swallowed, The siphon rig’s mouth clamped iron through mist, jaws grinding old Drift marrow so deep the Circle outside felt it shudder through grit under their boots.Ember slammed her palms to the jagged teeth where the seam used to breathe. Spiral stone crushed to her ribs, groove burning a line down her wrist.The First drifted low, hush catching her scream before it scattered cold into the mist.The Second’s hum pulsed under the Driftline plates, not a roar, not a break. Just a heartbeat hammering at iron that refused to crack.Inside, Callen staggered through the siphon’s throat. The corridor was gone, replaced by pulse, static, bone, He could feel the Witnesses pressed behind him, ribs scraping iron, spiral stones flicking sparks where the siphon claws tried to taste marrow that wouldn’t kneel.The child clung to his belt. Spiral stone tight in both fists. No words, just breath, The siphon’s voice bled through the coil’s hum: “Keeper. Keepe
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