The plaza tears open.
Not with sound, but with weight. The kind that drops into your bones and steals your breath.
Our rings strike.
His power hits like bone splinters—jagged, cold, seeking cracks in my mind. Mine answers with stormlight, coiled memory, and Vellidra's will.
Lira lunges forward, blade drawn. The rival doesn't move, but the space in front of her bends, warps. She grits her teeth, steps sideways through it, and swings anyway.
He vanishes.
Not away. Just *shifts.* From center to edge. Behind Kett.
Kett reacts too late. His ring pulses, and threadlines snap from her fingers, falling dead.
"Seal the circle!" I shout.
The four seal-holders close in. Voul plants his feet and raises both arms. Symbols shimmer around him, locking into the cobblestones. Nera hums low, her stitched mouth vibrating with hollow power. Fenn channels light through his hands, and Jeral carves lines into the air with his blade.
The circle begins to hold.
But the rival's power is slippery. It leaks through the cracks, testing, stretching.
"You think this is your city," he says, calm as ever. "You think these people are yours to shield."
"They're not mine," I growl. "But they're not yours either."
The ring on my hand twists. I feel Vellidra's memory rise—her final stand, her bleeding fingers, her silence.
I pull it forward.
Stormlight lashes out in arcs, carving symbols into the air. They anchor the seal-holders' circle. Now it holds *tight.*
The rival falters. Just a blink.
Lira drives forward again. This time, she hits. Blade skims his shoulder, sparks off the bone-threaded cloak. He doesn't bleed. But he *notices.*
Kett regains her focus and hurls a dozen threadlines toward him. They weave around his limbs, tug, twist, tighten.
Then he does something that chills me.
He *laughs.*
The air turns black behind him, and from it steps a figure.
No face. No voice. Just shadow wrapped in bone thread. A Threadless bound to him, fully.
"Fall back," I order. "New player."
The shadow strikes at Narth—fast, silent, deadly. Branvel intercepts, flame surging from his fingertips. The shadow recoils, hissing, then reforms.
Kett shouts, "We can't hold them both!"
"We don't need to," I say. "Just long enough."
I press the ring to the ground. Feel it pulse, deeper this time.
The Vault answers.
Below the plaza, the stone trembles.
The rival's head tilts again. "You woke something."
"No," I say. "*She* did."
A burst of memory slams through me—Vellidra's last seal, buried beneath the city, meant for a moment like this.
The stone cracks open beneath my feet.
From it rises a shape—neither man nor god—made of silence and light.
The rival steps back for the first time.
I raise my hand, and the figure beside me echoes the motion.
Two rings.
One bound to silence. One to bone.
And this city will not be rewritten without a fight.