Chapter 61: ESCALATION

The building Gant had vanished through kept collapsing after his body disappeared inside it. Silk supports snapped one after another, the suspended structure rolled against the central bloom, and a fracture raced into the canyon wall. The grinding travelled through the amber beneath Sio’s boots and into his teeth. The tail tightened behind him, corrected his balance and shifted his ruined leg away from a widening crack before Sio could even think to move.

That had been one hit. Just one.

Maelor stepped down from the shattered bud without looking at the damage. Through the dust above him hung a pale circular shape, too clean around the edges to belong to the real sky. Loose silk, splinters and stones had already begun leaning toward it. The pull reached Sio a heartbeat later. His coat pressed against his neck, sap dragged at his soles, and pebbles rolled uphill across the amber. He swallowed against the pressure in his ears and tasted dust and old blood.

Gant came back through the ruined building before it finished folding around him. Blood covered half his face and his coat hung open along one shoulder, but he landed on a swinging bridge, caught the railing and slapped his palm against it. A pale mark remained there. Below, the information broker appeared beneath the walkway as dust passed through his projection. Translucent windows unfolded around his shoulders, and his smile sharpened.

"There we are. I was beginning to worry that would end quickly."

Maelor lifted one hand, and the canyon answered. A fracture opened high above them and crawled down the wall with a deep groan until a whole section twisted loose and began shedding boulders over the market. Gant ran toward the falling stone. His fingers skimmed one slab as it passed close enough to tear cloth from his sleeve, leaving another pale mark before it vanished below.

Arch drove Angle forward along the folding flower and kept himself behind Sterling and Sio. His attention moved between tightening silk, closing petals and roots thicker than buildings, yet he never reached for the door Sio had seen him use before.

Why isn’t he opening it?

Arch only adjusted the Siphon Aegis and kept moving, as though that option had already been ruled out.

The path ahead narrowed into tilted shop roofs and a silk bridge tearing loose from one anchor. Merchants and buyers flooded both routes while pieces of the upper canyon punched through roofs around them. Sterling caught one man’s sleeve when the stranger slipped beside him, but the fabric tore between his fingers. The crowd swallowed the falling body, and nobody in Arch’s group changed course.

Behind them, Karkas pressed his bloodied palm against the flower. The bounty placard above Sio trembled as darkness spread through the petal veins, swallowing half a bridge, a tilted shop and the widest route toward the outer edge.

The presence inside Sio changed direction immediately. The tail drove into a silk support, bent beneath his weight, and one portal opened across a falling building while another formed farther down the slope.

Angle followed through and compressed solar light between his palms. The blast punched a narrow molten path through the stone blocking his landing, and hot air rolled back across Sio’s face carrying the sharp smell of scorched sap.

Maelor’s head turned before the light faded. His attention fixed on Angle for two long heartbeats, quiet recognition in his expression before he looked back toward Gant.

Arch saw it too.

After that, whenever the broken route gave him a choice, he kept drifting between Angle and the center of the canyon.

Angle landed hard and fired one gauntlet downward to check his fall. Sterling jumped after him and nearly missed the edge, but Angle caught his coat and used another short burst to pull them both up.

Sio’s body came through the portal without permission.

Good to know he can do that now.

Heat brushed his cheek while grit scraped his throat.

Gumm shifted against his shoulder. The little creature had stayed unusually still since the takeover began, but now one thin limb climbed along Sio’s neck and pressed against his cheek. Several eyes opened across its body.

"Papa?"

Gumm pressed closer as if checking whether the person it knew was still somewhere inside.

Something tightened behind Sio’s ribs.

Yeah. I know. Something is wrong with Papa too.

His mouth gave Gumm nothing back while the tail moved behind him.

Karkas came through the dust as Gumm pulled away from the unfamiliar motion. Dead territory crawled beneath his steps.

Gumm stretched one narrow arm toward him, and the presence controlling Sio opened a portal in front of the reaching hand. The limb vanished beside Sio and emerged behind Karkas, catching his collar and jerking hard enough to ruin his landing.

Karkas struck the roof on one knee while Gumm’s arm snapped back. Two of its eyes followed the fading portal, then turned toward Sio.

Don’t you start learning from him too.

Before another portal appeared, Gumm stretched its fist toward empty air.

Purple light opened a moment later and carried the small arm to Karkas’s ribs. He blocked it just as the tail swept low from the other side, forcing him to abandon his counterattack.

Great. Even Gumm understands this bastard faster than I do.

The roof rotated beneath them. Sio’s stomach lurched as the floor rolled toward a wall and sap-slick boards shifted under his boots. Angle drove both gauntlets into the surface and released two controlled bursts, slowing the turn enough for the group to scramble across.

Torn silk whipped Sio’s face. The tail kept correcting for his damaged leg, and behind them Gant and Maelor no longer sounded like two people fighting. It sounded like the canyon itself was breaking.

The pale disc descended.

Pressure shifted hard enough to pop Sio’s ears, and roots thicker than buildings tore from the canyon walls with wet cracks.

Tavian dropped to one knee when another root snapped below him. Blood poured from his nose and lips onto the living flower and disappeared into the surface.

Another root tore free, and his shoulders jerked as though the plant had pulled something out of him.

Crimson raced through the surviving root network. Red shoots forced their way through mud, broken stone and shattered foundations while reddish mist gathered close to the canyon floor.

Arch saw the first clusters opening below and pushed the group toward higher ground without explanation.

Nobody needed one.

Rovan reached Gant before Maelor closed again. Steel and brass covered most of his body, but a dull unfamiliar alloy had spread across one forearm from a broken support he had touched.

It held for several steps before bubbling, dark cracks forming underneath as heat rolled from it.

Selyn’s head snapped toward him.

"You didn’t identify that alloy."

"I noticed."

Rovan tore the material away before the reaction reached his shoulder, stripping off part of the transformed layer while familiar steel covered what remained.

The failure slowed him only for a moment, but Gant used it.

He stopped retreating, let Maelor close and struck his palm against Maelor’s shoulder.

A dark mark remained.

Nothing changed for less than a heartbeat.

Then the ruined battlefield screamed.

Rovan’s discarded shells ripped from the petals. Marked shop frames tore free from silk anchors. Flower ribs reversed direction in mid-fall while slabs of canyon stone abandoned their paths.

One moment debris was falling everywhere.

The next, everything Gant had prepared crossed the canyon toward Maelor too fast for Sio to separate the pieces.

The broker appeared on a falling slab and laughed as the stone passed through him.

"There it is."

Maelor vanished beneath the convergence, and the central bloom folded under the impact.

A pressure wave tore through the canyon and ripped their bridge loose from one side.

Sterling lost his footing, but Arch caught his wrist while the Siphon Aegis took a falling slab. The impact drove Arch onto one knee as the gauntlet swallowed the force.

The presence inside Sio moved before Arch spoke.

Arch drove the stored impact into a broken amber rib just as a portal opened in its path. The shock vanished into purple light, then erupted from another portal beside Karkas and tore him through a shop wall beneath a shower of wood and silk.

Sio barely watched him disappear.

His attention stayed on Arch.

How did you both know?

Arch looked directly into his face for a brief moment. Recognition sat there beside something Sio could not place, then the bridge dropped again.

Angle caught Sio under one arm and fired downward, throwing them toward a surviving ledge.

Sterling slipped from the broken edge behind them, and Gumm reacted before anyone else.

One thin arm stretched across the gap and wrapped around his wrist.

Gumm was too small to haul a grown man up, but its grip stopped Sterling from dropping cleanly into the canyon. Arch seized his other arm while Angle braced against the ledge and fired a short burst, giving them enough leverage to drag him over.

Nobody stopped because there was nowhere safe enough to stop.

The group kept moving toward the outer rim while the mound covering Maelor began to rise behind them, piece by piece, toward the pale disc.

Gant stood opposite it with blood dripping from his chin.

Below, Tavian’s red sprouts spread through broken roots and mud while the crimson haze thickened.

Karkas stepped back through the ruined shop with blood running from his temple.

Dead territory resumed crawling after the group, swallowing routes almost as quickly as the canyon created them.

Monsters. Every single one of them.

Sio could only watch through eyes he still did not control while the tail caught another support and dragged him forward.

Gumm tightened against his shoulder. Angle’s gauntlets burned ahead, Sterling stumbled between them, and Arch stayed at the rear with the Siphon Aegis raised.

Tavian’s boundary still lay somewhere ahead through dust, red mist and falling debris.

A figure stepped onto the broken canyon rim above the remaining escape route.

Stone fell past the silhouette, close enough to scatter grit across the ledge, but the newcomer did not move.

Across the wreckage, Karkas noticed them.

His pursuit slowed.

His eyes left Sio and settled on the figure above the path.

Dead territory continued crawling toward Sio without him while Karkas remained where he was, staring at the newcomer.