Masuk*Isla* Water reaches my knee before we clear the first landing. The rigid support around my left leg fills and drags. Every step lifts half the sluice with it. Black water strikes from behind, catches the brace, and tries to turn my foot sideways. Caelen holds my hand. Not pulling. Not directing. His grip changes with the current, firm when the step disappears beneath me, loose when my balance returns. Maeven climbs along the wall on my other side, using the empty mouths of carved foxes as handholds. Another mouth erupts. Stormwater hits Caelen in the chest. He goes back one step. His injured shoulder strikes stone. The clean warmth of his hand vanishes as our fingers separate. I plant the cane between his boots. The wrapped grip catches beneath his heel before the current takes it. "Caelen. Cane." He looks down. I angle the shaft toward the wall. He follows the pressure, shifts his weight, and regains the step. Maeven grips his coat. "Now." He reaches the wall. The n
*Isla* The false runoff grate is breathing. Each sanctuary pulse pushes warm mineral air through its rusted bars. Snow melts around the opening, runs red over the rock, then freezes again two feet below. Sava kneels beside it with one hand on the red map. "Next pulse in twelve counts," Cedric says. He stands farther down the western cut with a copper fork pressed against the stone wall. A narrow line runs from it to the stolen relay fragment sealed inside his metal evidence box. Each time the sanctuary heart beats, the fork vibrates and the box answers with a dull click. Cedric has turned the enemy's signal into a clock. Of course he has. "Eleven," he says. Nightshade takes position. Liora stands behind Sava. Bran lies flat beside the grate with a wooden wedge and copper clamp. Tomas waits beneath the overhang, medical satchel strapped high against his ribs. The storm drives snow through the cut and fills every footprint within minutes. Caelen remains at my right shoulder.
*Isla* A single line runs along the back. It begins outside the sanctuary at the northern cliff, descends through an old smoke flue, and enters beside the branch controls. "The March observation route," she says. "Orla's watchers used it to enter and leave without crossing Fennec patrol ground. It connects to a relay shelf above the heart." The same gray-coated people who watched us leave the Salt Court. The same route that carried a copied Academy signature to Rovan. "They used March access because your pack watched the lower paths," I say. Maeven's mouth tightens. "We watched the paths we knew." Cedric traces the line with his gaze. "Can it be entered from outside?" "Yes. The north face has iron climbing pins beneath the ice." Sena looks toward the sanctuary ridge. "Exposed ascent." "Thirty feet. No shelter." Torven smiles. "Finally, a route designed by someone sensible." "It ends in a vertical drop." His smile fades. "Excessive." Liora takes the red charcoal from Sava
*Isla* The red page is not a page. Sava unfolds the first quarter. Then the second. Narrow seams release along the edges, opening the sheet until it covers half the hide map beneath it. Lines cross the red surface in black ink. Most stop at the edges without explanation. Some end in small squares. Others vanish beneath smears of dried bitter-seed oil. Cedric leans closer. Sava puts a knife between his hand and the paper. "No touching." "I was not touching." "You were preparing to." "I was reading." "Read from farther away." He does. Caelen remains beside me, his hand around mine. The clean silver traces on our wrists glow faintly where our skin meets. His thumb passes once over my knuckle. Not reassurance. Confirmation. The second bell is less than an hour away. Miran is tied beneath the sanctuary. Thirty-one Fennec wolves lie unconscious across the mountain. Orla waits beside a curse-heart built from stolen consent and calls the arrangement arithmetic. Sava removes th
*Isla* Orla's hooked seal expands above the fox key. Blue light spills into the shallow basin at the center of our witness circle. It does not disturb the water. It replaces it. Stone walls rise from the reflection. An iron door. A man bound to a chair beneath it. Sava stops breathing. Miran sits with his wrists tied separately to stone arms. His left hand is wrapped in a black splint. Blood darkens the cloth around two fingers. One cheek is swollen. His shirt hangs loose on a body that has not eaten enough. He lifts his head. "Sava?" She takes one step toward the basin. Liora does not block her. Sava crouches at the circle's edge. Her controlled register disappears. "I'm here." Miran's mouth shifts. It may be a smile. It looks painful. "You took too long." "You look terrible." "You always exaggerate." He coughs before the last word finishes. The sound scrapes through the projection. Tomas moves closer, studying the blue image as if he can treat it by irritation al
*Isla* Caelen wakes because my pain is shaking through him. His eyes open on a gasp. We lie on separate blankets inside the blackpine overhang. The witness circle remains above us, copper lines cut, memory keys removed, chairs empty. Someone has placed my cane beside my right hand. Caelen is three feet away. His body trembles in time with mine. "Isla?" "Here." His gaze finds my open eyes. "Where is the pain?" "Everywhere." "That is not useful." "It is extremely accurate." He tries to sit. His arms fail. Tomas appears above him and presses one hand to his shoulder. "Do not." "I need to reach her." "She has not asked you to." Caelen goes still. The correction hurts him. He accepts it. Tomas crosses to me. His fingers check my throat, wrist, the skin beneath my eyes. I let him. Mostly because lifting a hand to object would require decisions. "Can you feel your feet?" he asks. "Yes." "Both?" I move the right. Pain answers from the left before the toes do. "Yes."







