lchior slamd his staff into the ground. His hands shook. He did not look at them. He saw the mark on Eiji’s sleeve where the Null had bitten. The dark was not a wound that could be stitched.
"We made it," Selendra said, but she did not sound sure.
They scrambled to their feet. Vesper checked the bindings at her belt. Rhea looked at the ground for traps. lchior kept his eyes at the seam where they had entered, as if the space behind it might cough sothing else up.
Eiji touched his chest. The charm felt heavier. Alma’s voice was thin.
[Core integrity dropping. Energy lost through contact. I can seal so, but not all.]
"Is Kroth gone?" Eiji asked. He could not keep the fear from his voice. The word still tasted like blood.
lchior did not et his eyes. "Kroth left through the rift. For now, he’s gone. That does not an he is not looking."
Alma’s light pulsed slow. "The thing that ca is older than Kroth. It recognized a thread in you and wanted it. It is not finished."
Vesper grunted. She set a strip of bone into the earth and ground it in small circles. The touch made a faint heat run down her arm.
"We need to move," she said. "This place will not hold. The portal closed after us. We have no return door unless soone opens it."
Rhea looked at the skyline. Everything here looked wrong. The trees were thin as ribs. The wind felt like it had edges.
"If we stay," she said, "it will find us again."
lchior tightened his fingers on the staff. "We do not stay. We go to a safe place I know. It is not near where we fell. It will be quiet, and we will plan the next move."
They did not ask how he knew. There was no ti. He moved like a man who had borrowed a favor from fate once and now needed to repay it.
They ran. The ground here did not behave like the floor at ho. It shifted. Shadows clung to their boots. The sky moaned. Every step felt like walking on a back soone else had already broken.
Alma could not stay by Eiji for long. When she tried, the Null’s residue burned her like a virus. She flickered at the edge of sight, then fell back. Her voice hovered in his mind, a thread he could reach for and almost hold.
[We have to change how we move. The old ways will not help. If Null marked you, other things will notice it. Be careful who touches you.]
Eiji swallowed. He had no answer for her. He only had a fear that sat like a stone in his throat and the mory of cold hands wrapping his ankle would not leave.
They reached a small hollow in the rock where lchior stopped them. He planted the staff and muttered a long, tired chant. A thin do of low light rose and settled over the hollow. It was not strong. It would not last long. It would have to do.
"We rest," lchior said. "Briefly. We reband wounds. We make a plan. The door closed. The world we left might be done. That does not an this is safe."
Vesper pulled a small cloth from her satchel and tore it into strips. She wrapped Selendra’s wrist where the succubus had been grazed. Selendra hissed but did not complain. Rhea checked Eiji’s ankle and found a shallow cut where the Null had grazed him. She wrapped it with careful hands.
Eiji sat with his back against a rock. The do humd like a throat clearing. Alma’s light sat like a small sun in the air near his head, but she did not step closer.
[We survived because soone answered when lchior reached and because the door was open for the right second,] Alma said. [You are marked. That will change things.]
lchior looked at each of them in turn. "I can not say I know everything that waits ahead," he said. "I can say this: that thing is not sentient in the way we are. It is not a mind we can reason with. It is old. It will return with hunger. If Kroth returns, the hunt will be worse. We need allies, and we need ti."
Selendra snorted. "Allies? Where do we find allies after burning a god and stealing a shard?"
lchior did not flinch. "There are people who make bargains. There are places that owe more than they can pay. There are pockets where the laws break. We will start at the fringe. We will make a plan."
Eiji closed his eyes. He wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe anything that bought a little quiet.
Alma’s light dimd and brightened. For a second, it looked like tear in its glow.
[If Null touched you again,] she said, [it will not simply taste. It will try to take. If you let it, you will lose more than your life. You will lose what makes you us. I will not allow that.]
Eiji could not promise. He only set his jaw and opened his eyes.
Outside the do, the world breathed a sound like a low bell. The sky twitched and set its seams. The fracture behind them was not closed forever. Sothing in the dark liked their breath.
lchior rose and moved to the edge of the do. He looked back for a mont at the place where they had co through. The air there was empty, and where the white door had been, the world had stitched itself into a shallow scar that blinked once and then died.
He turned back to the team. "We go at dawn," he said. "We leave this hollow. We cross the fringe. We find soone with a map who owes us and soone with a sword who does not ask questions. We keep moving."
Selendra stretched, then looked at Eiji. Her voice lost the sarcasm for a second. "You’re not alone," she said. "Not if you don’t let Null eat everything that makes you feel."
Alma’s voice ca like a small laugh and then stopped. Eiji felt it as an ember in his chest.
[We move. We hide. We keep the light between us. The void rembers you. That only makes you more dangerous to what cos next.]
Behind them, the seam in the air thrumd once. It did not open. Not yet. But the sound of it was a promise of return.
They huddled together in the fake shelter while the sky above folded small, patient things. None of them slept. None of them wanted to. They waited through a night that felt like a bruise.
When dawn pushed a thin line across the eastern ridges, lchior tapped the staff. The do dropped away like a soft thing. They rose and moved out as one unit, each of them carrying so small part of the light.
The fracture had closed but it had left blood on the road. The thing that had co through had tasted a thread and rembered it. It would not be the last ti.
Eiji tucked his hand into his shirt and felt the charm warm against his skin. Alma’s light brushed the edge of it.
[Hold fast, host,] she said. [We begin again.]
He nodded because there was nothing else to do. The road ahead was long. The fracture had beco a map they could not unread. They walked into it.
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