Page 108 of Embers of Midnight
The lawn becomes a series of short sprints and one-breath holds. My lungs keep trying to bargain. There will be time to negotiate later. For now I count and cut.
We clear the east quad, then the north walk. The siren drops in pitch and pulls inward toward admin. The arch shield glows thicker, heartbeat wrong behind the wall. The dogs are done. The big rig is scrap. What remains are trained men too stubborn for their own survival.
We take ten seconds behind the bell tower base and pretend they are a full minute. Ash wipes blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. It is not his. Ronan’s jaw flexes and he exhales smoke, then kills it because discipline is older than anger in him. Caelum studies the shield like it owes him an apology. Darian maps angles and exits without moving his feet. His stillness puts the ground back where it belongs.
Shots crack from the west cloister. We pivot. Three Hunters use the colonnade as a slide. I cut the angle Ronan leaves open. The first catches a slash behind the knee and learns the column is not forgiving. The second tries to blindside Caelum and meets Somnus at the wrist; his knife hits stone. The third lifts a pistol at a healer crawling for cover. I break his arm at the elbow and finish the throw into the bench. The sound from the wood andhis bones arrives together. The healer crawls the last meter and slams the clinic door with both hands.
“Reload,” Darian says—at Ash, not me. Ash tosses him a pack, then slaps a pain-strip onto my bicep without asking. The ache backs off a notch. He winks and vanishes again.
“South gate,” Ronan points with the axe.
A team tries to wheel a second null-caster through the arch. My stomach drops. If that lights under our wards, the house goes dark.
“Take the crew,” Darian says. “I’ll handle the mouth.”
We run. Caelum pours silence under our feet. Ash ghosts to the far side; the shadow peels, becomes a man with no future, and disappears again. I hit the loader. He is quick enough to be a problem for a second and not longer. Pyrelight rakes his thigh, shallow and mean. His stance breaks. I kick the wheel wedge and the rig lurches, mouth skews. Darian plants a sigil that turns the next square of ground into a traitor. The tripod tips. The cone kisses stone and fractures. The light inside it dies like a bad idea. The loader looks at me and begs a god with his eyes. I was not hired for mercy.
We push them back through the arch and leave a ward that bites ankles on the way out.
Back across the quad. Smoke, cordite, blood, the stink of cooked armor. My head wants to climb into my throat. I keep it down with the count. Two short. One long.
“On your seven,” Caelum says. I pivot. A hunter with a hooked blade expects me to flinch. I give him simple reality: grip, step, cut. He becomes a problem for the floor.
Three students with spears they do not know how to use blunder into the fight. Ronan’s voice goes flat. “Inside. Now.” They run. One drops her spear. Ash scoops it and throws; the point pins a net gun to a crate, and the operator decides to reconsider his life.
We make the tower base again. The shield at the arch throbs. Whatever runs it is behind that door or under our feet. My palms sweat. The wrap itches under Taya’s patch. Every useful instinct I own agrees on the same thing even though I hate it.
“We can hold this,” Ash says. He is breathing hard and still grinning. His eyes ask me not to leave without asking.
“For the moment,” Ronan answers. His jaw is tight. There is blood on his shirt that is not his. The axe sits steady in his hand.
“For the moment,” Caelum echoes. He does not look away from the pulse inside the shield.
Darian’s gaze moves from exits to me. “Say it,” he tells me, because he hates when I carry a plan in silence.
“We can keep chewing grunts and still lose the building,” I say. My voice is rough and carries. “We need full wards and someone with keys. We need the Headmaster in the room.”
Ronan’s mouth flattens. He would gladly replace a headmaster with an axe if policy allowed it. Policy does not. “Two minutes,” he says, which is how he tells me to hurry without begging.
Darian takes my wrist. Two short. One long. “Anchor first.”
Caelum nods once. “Do not let a door lie.”
Ash bares his teeth without humor. “Little flame, if he says no, light the path.”
I look at each of them and hoard the second. The quad crackles. The shield pulses. My ribs hurt. My hands are steady.
“I’m going to get him for reinforcements.”
The Door You Chose
Seraphina
Ash presses two fingers to Morrow’s forehead. The ink-wolf pulls free of his skin like breath drawn in reverse and lands heavy at my side, all muscle and watchfulness.
“Take him,” Ash says, mouth tight. “He bites louder than I do.”
“I’ll be back,” I tell them, and it’s not bravado. It’s a plan I mean to keep.
