“Bring his hand to my door,” the voice said through the strand.
Tarrow’s shoulder jumped against the straps Pell had looped around him. The fire beneath the Saltified stone brightened, and the pale hand inside Istren tightened its grip on the inner silver line.
I put my marked palm over the outer tether. The groove in it stung; silver welled along the cut and slid between my fingers.
“No,” I told the voice.
The chamber gave my answer back as a faint, metallic hum. The three impressions in Istren’s sternum waited around the narrow crack. One held the pale hand. Two remained empty. I kept my eyes on the crack and my attention on Tarrow, because the voice had already shown it could make a demand feel like a pull.
Pell held Tarrow’s good arm, his stance braced against the bone shelf. “We’re done testing.”
“We have tested nothing about the demand,” I said.
“We tested what it does to him.”
“And now we test whether it can be answered without giving it what it wants.”
Pell’s jaw set. He didn’t loosen his grip. I understood the objection. I also understood that the voice would keep asking, and the first fire would keep listening. We could leave the hand in Istren’s chest and pretend distance was safety, or learn what happened when it got closer to Oda’s door. Pretending was cheaper. It was also how we’d arrived here.
Venn crouched near the tether rig, his white-streaked fingers careful around the silver. He watched the inner strand where it emerged from Istren. “If the hand moves, the line tightens.”
“Then we measure the tightening.”
“You’ll be measuring it through your palm.”
“Would you like the job?”
Venn glanced at my hand and looked away. He’d learned restraint. It had cost him more than he admitted.
Oda’s voice reached us through the line, thin with distance. “I’m clear of the door.”
“Can you see it?” I asked.
“I can see the shore.”
The black-salt coast was beyond the three-notched door, with that rising tide and the voice waiting behind it. Oda had moved away from the door once already. We needed to know whether the hand would make the voice louder, or the door weaker, or both.
I wrapped the free tether around my wrist twice. Pell’s eyes went to the stone fingers on my left hand.
“Vera.”
“If the strand pulls, it pulls me first.”
Next
Can Vera stop the pale hand from reaching Oda’s door now that it is moving without Tarrow’s fire or her guidance?
“It’s what I’ve arranged.” I nodded to Tarrow. “You decide when to touch the hand. You decide when to let go. No one moves you.”
He gave me a tired look. “I know.”
The answer came out plain. That mattered more than confidence would have.
Pell shifted to keep hold of him, then stopped when Tarrow turned his good shoulder away. It was a small refusal, but Pell let it stand. He held the strap instead of Tarrow’s arm.
I drew the outer tether tight across my palm. Venn kept the anchor line against the bone shelf. Then Tarrow reached with his Saltified hand.
The first fire showed through the stone seams. He touched the pale hand’s wrist.
Istren’s chest clicked. The crack opened by the width of a fingernail, and the inner hand flexed around the strand. Tarrow’s fingers closed over its wrist. The fire flared; a fresh white vein climbed from his shoulder toward his neck.
He didn’t lurch. His feet stayed planted.
“Still yours?” I asked.
“For now.”
“Move it one span.”
Tarrow leaned back. The hand inside Istren slid along the strand, dragging a shimmer of silver behind it. My tether snapped tight. The pull reached my palm and bit into the groove. Pain went up my wrist, sharp and clean. The hand moved less than a hand’s width.
Tarrow’s shoulder seam whitened another finger’s length.
Pell swore and took a step forward. “Enough.”
“Not yet,” I said. My voice stayed level; my hand did not. The marked palm was shaking against the tether. “Tarrow, stop pulling.”
“I am.”
The strand kept drawing tight.
Venn leaned in, then caught himself before his fingers reached it. “The fire’s carrying the pull. He isn’t.”
That was the difference we needed. Tarrow could stop his own body, but the fire still answered the hand’s movement. I pressed the stone heel of my palm against the silver and spoke Istren’s name.
The letters in my palm heated. The inner strand shifted toward me. It looped across the old groove and pulled the tension out of Tarrow’s arm.
The crack in my hand spread. A fine line ran from the mark toward my wrist, and silver blood darkened the tether.
Tarrow sagged as the pull left him. Pell caught his weight at the strap, not his body. For one second, the pale hand hung between us, held by the strand and nothing else.
“Now?” Tarrow asked.
“Now.”
The hand moved another span.
Oda made a sound over the line, quick and involuntary. “It’s at the door.”
The inner strand went taut. I felt it through my palm before the words reached me. On the far end, the three-notched door scraped against its frame.
“Don’t let it cross,” I said.
“I’m away from it,” Oda replied. Her voice had gone tight. “It’s reaching toward the latch.”
There was no latch in the memory we’d seen. I kept that to myself. The door had three shallow cuts in its black surface; the Godkiller’s mind had built the thing from a wound we still hadn’t understood. I had no interest in giving it a name that might help it.
The pale hand’s fingers opened. The palm faced the door.
A dark circle sat in its center, where the flesh should have been smooth. The mark looked burned through. Tarrow made a small, rough noise.
“You’ve seen that before?” I asked.
“No.” He swallowed. “The fire knows it.”
The first fire brightened inside his rigid hand. The dark circle answered with a dull red pulse. The pale fingers curled, and the sound came through the strand: a dry scrape, like bone dragging over stone.
Oda spoke over it. “The voice is quiet now.”
That was something. The hand had reached the door without Tarrow’s whole arm being dragged after it. The door had stayed shut. We had made the demand wait on our terms, if only for a few heartbeats.
“Can you stay clear?” I asked.
“I can.” Her reply came with a tremor she couldn’t quite hide. “I don’t know what it’s doing.”
“Neither do I.”
Venn’s gaze had fixed on the dark circle in the pale palm. His fingers twitched once against his knee. He kept them there.
The strand drew tighter against my hand. The burning mark in the pale palm shifted, turned toward me. I felt the old name in my stone hand answer it. The crack in my palm widened with a faint, gritty sound.
Tarrow looked at me. “Vera, I’m losing the stop.”
“Release.”
He opened his hand.
The fire dimmed. The inner strand slackened. The pale hand stopped where it was, suspended just short of the door. Pell’s grip remained on the strap, but he no longer braced as though Tarrow might be taken bodily. He looked from Tarrow’s open hand to the slack in the line, then at the new white seam cutting across Tarrow’s shoulder.
“You stopped it,” Pell said.
Tarrow studied the hand he couldn’t use. “I stopped myself.”
There was pride in the words, and fear under it. He’d earned both. I wanted to tell him he’d done well. Instead, I pulled the tether away from my palm before the crack could widen farther.
My fingers had gone numb. The stone did not care.
The pale hand remained by the far end of the line. The voice did not speak. Oda kept her distance from the door. We had bought a measure of control, and it had cost Tarrow more Saltification and me a deeper split through the mark that tied me to Istren.
Then the hand’s fingers closed on the strand.
No fire brightened. Tarrow’s arm stayed slack.
The hand pulled.
The inner line began sliding through Istren’s crack, inch by inch, toward Oda’s door. I pressed my ruined palm against the outer tether and felt it draw taut again.