The knock came before dawn.
Not the warden's gentle pattern, not Kael's nervous rhythm, not Halvar's exhausted rap.
Three sharp strikes.
Pause.
Two more.
Orane.
John was already awake.
He'd been lying on his back, watching the chalk stars glow faintly above the cradle, listening to Brian's small breaths and the tower's slower hum, waiting for something to happen.
Something always did.
He swung his legs over the pallet as Orane's voice came through the door, low but carrying.
"Aetheris," she said. "Up. You're on the list."
Doris stirred, hand going automatically to the cradle.
Brian slept on, one fist pressed against his cheek, oblivious.
John crossed to the door and touched the sigil.
It flared once, then let him open it.
Orane stood in the corridor, lantern hooded in her off hand, sword at her hip, hair braided back tight. She looked even more tired than
Halvar, which was saying something.
"What list?" John asked.
"Scout detail," she said. "We've got preliminary traces from the shard. Three likely sites. Halvar and Lyr want eyes on one before the city wakes."
"Which one?" Dorothy asked from her chair, already sitting up, eyes sharp.
"Old Market line," Orane said. "Less blessed ground than the chapel district, less water risk than the river bend. If they're staging anywhere first, it's there."
"And you want him," Doris said, pushing herself upright. "Why?"
"Because he hears what my people don't," Orane said. "And because when things go wrong, he's very good at not dying."
John couldn't argue that last part.
He didn't like what it implied about the rest.
Doris's fingers trembled on the cradle edge. "How far down?" she asked.
"Not sanctum-deep," Orane said. "We're not barging straight into whatever pit they're digging. Just the approach tunnels. Old storm drains, access shafts, forgotten storage. We find where the line hums wrong, we mark it, we leave."
Flint rolled off his pallet, already reaching for his boots. "You said 'we,'" he said. "I heard it. Don't pretend you didn't."
"I did," Orane said. "You're coming too."
Flint grinned humorlessly. "I knew this day would be disgusting."
John looked at Doris.
She looked back, eyes too bright in the dim.
"You can say no," she said quietly.
He wanted to.
Gods, he wanted to.
He wanted to lock the door, sit with his back against it, and dare the Paragons to come through the stone while he watched his son
breathe.
But the shard's tug still echoed in his bones from yesterday.
And the thought of Orane and her squad going into the tunnels without someone who could feel those wrong lines made his stomach twist.
"If I say no and they miss something," he said, "you won't sleep."
"I don't sleep anyway," she said.
Brian made a small noise in his sleep, hand twitching toward the crooked chalk star.
John exhaled.
"I'll go," he said.
Doris's jaw clenched, but she nodded once.
He started strapping on his leathers and sword belt.
Dorothy rose and crossed to Doris's side, resting a hand briefly on her shoulder.
"I'll stay," the older woman said. "Any mist, any hook, any shadow in this room gets a staff to the face before it gets anywhere near him."
Doris swallowed. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me," Dorothy said. "I just don't like losing arguments with Paragons."
Kael appeared in the corridor as John tightened his vambrace, hair half-tamed, eyes fully awake.
"You too?" John asked.
Kael nodded. "Halvar's orders. 'If something hums down there, I want your ears on it before it eats anyone.' His words."
"Comforting," Flint muttered.
They set out with a small squad.
Orane at the front.
Two wardens behind her, both in reinforced leathers, spears and short swords at the ready.
John and Flint in the middle.
Kael just ahead of them, close enough to hear the lattice but stays out of the first swing.
One more warden at the rear, watching their backs.
They left the tower by a side exit near the west ward, ducking through a modest door that fed into a maintenance corridor, then into a narrow stone stair that spiraled down below street level.
The city above was only just waking, the sounds muffled—market carts, vendors yawning, shutters opening. Down here, the air was cooler, damp, carrying the faint smell of old stone and older water.
John brushed a hand along the wall.
The hum was thinner here—the tower's lattice bled into the city's wardwork, then into older layers he couldn't quite parse.
"Feel anything?" Orane asked without looking back.
"Not yet," John said. "Just old work."
Kael snorted softly. "Old work can kill you as fast as new," he said.
They reached a low arch with a rusted iron gate, its lock so corroded it had become more symbolic than functional.
Orane produced a key anyway, more out of habit than necessity, and wrestled it open.
"Welcome to paradise," she said dryly.
Beyond lay an old runoff tunnel, wide enough for two to walk abreast, ceiling low enough that John had to duck. Water trickled in a shallow channel at the center, the smell of damp and mold thick.
The hum changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that the hairs on John's arms rose.
"You feel it?" Kael murmured.
"Yeah," John said. "Like a… bruise."
Kael nodded. "Same."
Orane's hand went up.
"Quiet," she said. "If they're down here, they'll hear you whining before they feel your hum."
Flint mimed zipping his mouth.
They moved.
Bootsteps on stone.
Drip of water.
Lantern light bouncing off slick walls.
John kept his left hand on the wall, letting the roughness scrape his fingertips, tracking the faint variations in the hum.
Most of the tunnel felt… tired.
Noisy in that old way, like a place that had seen too much neglect and too many quick patches.
Then, as they approached an intersection where another tunnel joined from the left, the sound under his skin sharpened.
He froze.
"Here," he whispered.
Orane halted instantly.
Kael's eyes half-closed.
"I hear it," he said. "Up ahead. Left side. Like a chord out of tune."
Orane glanced at the two wardens.
They tightened grips on their spears.
"We check it," she said. "John, with me. Kael, behind us. Flint, rear shift with Bren. If anything comes from the right tunnel, stab it
before it stabs us."
"Love clear instructions," Flint muttered.
They advanced.
Ten paces.
Fifteen.
The wrongness grew stronger.
It wasn't a hook.
Hooks felt like hands reaching, trying to pull or taste.
This was more like… a vibrating tooth.
Pressure.
Pain waiting to ignite.
The lantern light caught on something at the left wall—chalk lines, hastily drawn, half-rubbed by damp.
A crack symbol with three dots underneath.
John's stomach turned.
"Here we go again," he muttered.
Orane crouched, examined it without touching.
"Fresh," she said. "Day or two at most. Lyr's people didn't mark this one on the last sweep."
"Look there," Kael whispered.
Ten paces beyond the chalk, the left-hand wall sagged inward.
At first John thought it was a simple cave-in—stone bowed, mortar cracked, a chunk missing near the floor.
Then he saw the edges.
Too smooth.
Too clean.
Like someone had cut the wall out and let the surrounding stone slump into the gap.
Behind the warped stone, darkness deeper than shadow waited.
His skin crawled.
The hum pressed against his jaw, his teeth, his eyes.
"That's not natural," Flint murmured from behind.
"No," Orane said. "It's a door."
"Not done," Doris would have said, if she were here. "Incomplete."
John remembered her description of the town that had torn—the way the first cracks had looked small, almost manageable, before
everything slid.
Kael edged closer, squinting.
"The lattice bends here," he said. "Like someone pushed their thumb into clay and twisted. I don't like it."
"No one asked you to," Orane said.
She shifted her grip on the lantern and nodded to John.
"Stand with me," she said. "If something comes out, we hold the line long enough for Bren to get back topside and scream."
Bren, the rear warden, grunted acknowledgment.
John stepped up.
The wrongness pulsed once.
Then, from the darkness, a voice said, "Careful."
Not a Paragon voice.
Not oily.
Not chanting.
Just… amused.
John's sword was out before the word finished.
Orane's followed a heartbeat later.
A figure stepped out of the warped stone as if stepping through a curtain.
Gray cloak.
Plain clothes underneath.
Face unremarkable in every way except for the eyes—bright, alert, taking in everything.
Kael swore softly.
"That's them," he whispered. "Teren's 'scholar.'"
John felt his fingers tighten on the hilt.
The hum around the stranger bent weirdly—like a note deliberately out of tune to avoid resolving into anything the wards would
register as Paragon or Academy.
"Good morning," the gray-cloaked figure said cheerfully. Their accent matched Teren's description—something eastern, vowels stretched like cloth. "Always a pleasure to be met by professionals."
"No one invited you," Orane said, blade steady. "Step back through that wall and stay there."
"Tempting," the figure said. "But I'm afraid I'm on a schedule."
The hum twitched.
John heard it—a slight rise, like a breath being drawn.
Behind them, a soft thud.
He risked a glance.
The way they'd come—empty.
Bren and Flint were gone.
"Don't," Kael hissed. "It's a fold. They're not gone-gone. Just… shifted."
The gray-cloaked figure smiled. "Your friend is right. A small courtesy demonstration. No one's dead. Yet. We just needed a… private
conversation."
Orane's voice could have stripped paint. "You just folded two of my people without consent."
"Yes," the stranger said. "And if I wanted them dead, they would be. But I don't. I'd prefer not to waste potential. I only need…" Their gaze slid to John. "…you."
The hum tightened.
John felt his pulse pound in his ears.
"Why?" he asked, keeping his sword up.
"Because you're the stone they keep stacking everything on," the stranger said. "If you break, interesting things happen."
"Try it," Orane said.
The stranger clicked their tongue. "No. See, that's the part you all never quite grasp. We don't want you broken. Not yet. We want you
stressed. Bent. Made to choose between things that matter."
"Get to the point," Orane said. "Who are you?"
The stranger tilted their head, considering.
"Names are so… heavy," they said. "Unnecessary. But if you need one, call me Echo. It's as accurate as any."
"Paragon," Kael said quietly.
Echo's smile widened. "Once," they said. "Now? More than that. We study what your Voidborn left behind and what your Empire pretends isn't still humming under its feet. We're not the only ones, you know."
"Funny," John said. "All the people poking where they shouldn't always say that right before they light something on fire."
Echo laughed.
Actually laughed.
"And they say you have no sense of humor," they said. "This is encouraging. You'll need it."
The hum surged.
Echo lifted a hand, fingers curled inward.
From the warped stone behind them, tiny cracks raced outward, skittering across the tunnel wall like spiders.
Kael inhaled sharply.
"Hook," he hissed. "They're pulling on the old anchor."
John didn't think.
He stepped forward, sword slashing toward Echo's exposed wrist.
Steel met air.
Then resistance.
Then something that felt like trying to cut water.
Echo blurred, cloak twisting around them.
They swayed sideways, hand snapping down, catching John's blade flat near the tip with two fingers.
The sword shuddered.
So did the wardline under his feet.
"Careful," Echo said softly. "If you swing like that with the wrong pattern under you, you'll cut more than me."
Orane lunged from the other side.
Echo twisted.
The lantern light seemed to bend with them, throwing angles where there should have been straight lines.
Orane's blade grazed the gray cloak.
It left a thin cut.
No blood.
Echo's eyes flashed.
"Enough," they said.
The cracks in the wall shrieked.
The hum jumped an octave.
John felt the old anchor under the stone wake in response, an ugly, groaning thing, half-broken, grasping for symmetry.
The pressure slammed into him like a wave.
He staggered.
Brian.
The thought came unbidden, sharp.
He pictured the cradle.
The chalk stars.
The way Brian's face had looked in the dream-front—brow tight, fists clenched.
No.
Not again.
John dropped his swordpoint and slammed his palm flat against the tunnel wall.
"Not this way," he snarled, more to the lattice than to Echo.
He'd been listening to the hum for weeks now, letting it thread through him, learning its patterns, its moods.
Now he pushed back.
Not with spells he didn't have.
Not with formal structures.
Just with refusal.
He took the picture of cracks in his mind and shoved it away, replacing it with the quiet of the suite, the steady of the chalk stars, the feel of Halvar's clean knots in the council chamber, the river-song Doris had hummed.
The lattice shuddered.
Echo's eyes widened, just a fraction.
"Interesting," they murmured.
The cracks in the wall slowed.
Kael, seeing his opening, slapped his own hand to the stone, adding his smaller will to John's.
"I hate this," Kael whispered. "I hate this I hate this I hate this—"
But he pushed too.
Orane stepped in to fill the physical gap, blade up, between Echo and the deforming wall.
The Paragon—Echo—watched them, expression half thrilled, half annoyed.
"You're learning faster than I expected," they said. "Good. It would be boring otherwise."
They snapped their fingers.
From the darkness behind them, three more figures emerged.
This time, there was no cloak to blur their allegiance.
Red sashes.
Bone-bead bracelets.
Cracked symbols painted on their palms.
Paragons.
"Kill them," Orane said calmly.
"Working on it," John muttered.
The fight turned sharp and tight.
One cultist flung a hand forward, crack-marked palm blazing as a thin blade of warped air screeched down the tunnel.
Orane met it with her sword, steel sparking as the distorted edge clanged and skidded along the blade.
She stepped in and cut the man down with a brutal, efficient strike.
Another Paragon lunged for Kael, dagger low, bracelets humming.
John pivoted, dragging his sword free of Echo's grip with a wrench that tore something in his shoulder.
He slammed the flat of his blade into the cultist's wrist.
Bone cracked.
The dagger clattered to the stone.
Kael drove his own knife into the man's thigh, dropping him.
The third cultist shouted an invocation—something about purity and flame—and hurled a small bone charm at the wall.
Echo's hand flicked.
The charm bounced away harmlessly, snapping under their heel.
"No," Echo said. "Not yet."
The hum pulsed again, protesting.
John gritted his teeth and held.
The lattice under his hand felt like a rope pulled taut between two cliffs.
One end: the Paragon anchor, straining to slide.
The other: the tower's far reach, the old stabiliser's Doris's family had set long ago, refusing.
For a heartbeat, he felt the scope of it—not just this tunnel, but the lines that ran under streets and shrines and homes.
If this snapped wrong, something far above would feel it.
Brian would feel it.
No.
His fingers dug into damp stone.
He didn't know how to do what Doris did, how to shape patterns with intent and symbol.
He only knew how to hold.
So he held.
Kael's breath hitched at his side.
"What are you doing?" Kael gasped.
"Stubbornness," John growled. "Try it."
Kael laughed once, breathless and terrified.
"Halvar's going to kill us," he said.
"If we live," John replied.
Echo watched them with unnerving calm.
The three cultists—now two, with one bleeding heavily—shifted, unsettled.
"What's wrong?" the one with the cracked palm shouted. "You said the line would slide!"
Echo sighed.
"I said it could, if no one worthy opposed it," they said. "Apparently, the Empire still produces the occasional disappointment."
They stepped back toward the warped wall.
"We're done here."
"Oh no we're not," Orane snarled.
She lunged.
Echo flicked their fingers.
For a heartbeat, the tunnel folded.
Not visually—not in any way John could track with his eyes.
But the hum twisted.
Space bent.
Orane's sword passed cleanly through where Echo's chest had been.
Echo was suddenly three steps to the side, cloak rustling.
They bowed, mocking.
"This was a test," they said. "You passed. Try not to fail the ones that matter."
Behind them, the two surviving Paragons threw down small bone fragments.
The wrongness flared.
Not hooks.
Smoke.
Thick, choking, reeking of burned incense and something sour.
It filled the tunnel, obscuring sight.
John coughed, eyes watering.
He lost his grip on the wall.
The hum snapped back, like a pulled rope released without breaking.
Stone groaned.
Not collapsing.
Not sliding.
Just… shifting a fraction, then resettling.
By the time the smoke cleared, Echo and the cultists were gone.
The warped wall still sagged, but the hairline cracks had stopped their skittering advance.
John sucked in a lungful of less foul air.
His shoulder burned where he'd torqued it.
Kael was panting, one hand still pressed to the stone.
Orane wiped blood from her blade with a strip of cloth, eyes hard.
"Anyone dead?" she demanded.
Flint's voice floated from behind them, strained. "Not yet."
They turned.
Flint and Bren stood at the far end of the tunnel, hair and cloaks disheveled, faces pale.
"You all right?" John asked.
Flint scowled. "Define 'all right,'" he said. "One second I'm watching our rear, the next my stomach thinks we've been turned inside out and I'm in a broom closet two blocks from here. Bren almost threw up on me."
Bren grunted. "I did throw up. Just not on you."
Flint gestured down the tunnel. "What happened here? Why does it smell like bad temple smoke?"
"Paragons," Orane said shortly. "And something worse in a gray cloak. We held the line. Barely."
Kael leaned back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting, legs splayed, chest heaving.
"I hate the undercity," he said. "I liked it better when my worst problem was miscasting light spells."
Orane checked the warped section of wall again, fingers hovering near the cracks.
"How bad?" John asked.
"Contained," she said. "For now. They were trying to pry. Open a narrow slip down to the old anchor. They failed. But the fact they can
prod at all this close to the surface is… not my favorite discovery."
"We met Echo," John said.
"Who?" Flint asked.
Gray cloak.
Bright eyes.
Hands that bent blades.
"Paragon handler," Kael said. "Calls themself Echo. Felt like a bad idea given legs."
Orane sheathed her sword. "Halvar's going to love this," she said.
"I'd prefer Maevra not kill me before he can yell," Kael muttered.
"We go up," Orane said. "Slow. Watch every step. If they folded you once, they might have left surprises."
They retraced their path.
The hum gradually eased back toward its usual tired tone.
By the time they reached the stair, John's hands had stopped shaking.
Mostly.
Back in the suite, Brian didn't know anything about Echo.
Or cracks.
Or undercity scraps of sanctum.
He knew that something had tugged at the edge of his dreams again—not mist, not faces, just a sharp spike in the hum that had made him twitch in his sleep.
Doris had felt it.
She'd started to rise, song already on her lips.
Dorothy had laid a hand on her arm. "Wait," she'd said. "That's not here. It's below. Let them do their job."
"But if it reaches him—"
"It hasn't," Dorothy had said. "Listen. Feel where the wrongness is. It's not in this room. It's not in him. It's under the city. John is there. If we push from here, we might make it worse for him. We hold ground. We don't grab the rope from both ends and snap it."
It had taken everything Doris had not to hum anyway.
She'd sat, knuckles white on the cradle edge, feeling the wrongness spike and then… fade.
When the door knock came hours—or minutes; time had blurred—later, she nearly tore it off its hinges.
John stood there, filthy, shoulder bruised, eyes exhausted.
Alive.
She pulled him in without a word.
He went willingly, burying his face against her neck for a heartbeat before remembering himself.
"Brian?" he asked.
"Safe," she said. "Asleep. He… stirred. But we held."
"Good," he said.
Flint flopped into his usual chair like his bones had turned to water.
"If anyone ever suggests I go underground again, I'm throwing them down a well," he announced.
Kael lingered in the doorway, half in, half out.
"I need to report to Halvar," he said. "But I… wanted to see…"
He trailed off as his gaze found Brian.
The baby had woken at the sound of voices, blinking blearily, cheeks flush with sleep.
He saw John, made a delighted noise, and threw both arms up.
John's throat closed.
He crossed the room in three strides and scooped Brian up, ignoring the ache in his shoulder.
Brian patted his face with a damp hand.
"You missed nothing," John murmured. "Good."
Doris watched him.
"You felt it," she said softly. "The crack. The pull."
"Yes," he said.
"And?"
"We held," he said. "Me. Kael. Orane. The wall." He swallowed. "Echo wanted me broken. Or bent. Or scared. I'm the wrong man to threaten through my own fear."
Flint snorted. "He's very stupid that way," he said.
John almost smiled.
Dorothy rapped her staff lightly on the floor. "Ledger," she said.
He nodded.
He handed Brian back to Doris, grabbed the book, and sat.
His hand still trembled slightly when he picked up the quill.
He wrote:
— First undercity foray (Old Market line). Orane, Kael, Flint, wardens, me. Found fresh crack mark + warped wall (partial anchor
slide). Met gray-cloak "Echo" (Paragon handler / sanctum scholar). They attempted to stir old anchor, open slip. Countered by direct refusal through lattice (me + Kael). Paragon strike team (3). Orane killed 1, 1 injured, 1 escaped. Echo folded Flint + Bren briefly (spatial displacement, non-lethal).
Smoke charm retreat.
He paused, then added:
— Result: line held. Wall scarred but not torn. Echo assessing us. Pattern: they test pressure points (drains, wards, dreams,
undercity). Next moves likely coordinated with shard sites.
He hesitated once more.
Then, in smaller script:
— Fear: If I hadn't been listening these last weeks, that wall might have gone. Thought: listening is a weapon too.
Doris read over his shoulder.
Her hand came to rest on his back, fingers light.
"You held," she said.
"We held," he corrected. "I don't know what I did. I just… refused."
"That's half of Voidborn work," Dorothy said. "The other half is knowing what to refuse."
Brian whacked John's arm with his small fist, demanding attention.
John obliged.
The tower hummed.
Under the Old Market, stone shifted uneasily over a half-stirred anchor.
In some hidden room, Echo reported to unseen superiors, voice bright with interest.
"He's already pushing through the lattice," they said. "Imagine what the child will do when he can stand."
Back in the suite, John watched Brian wrap both fists around his thumb, grip solid.
"You don't get to be their test," he said quietly. "They can have me. Not you."
Brian gurgled, unimpressed.
Doris leaned her head briefly against John's shoulder.
"We can't stop them from trying," she said. "We can only make every attempt cost them."
John nodded.
"We're getting better at that," he said.
Fear still sat in his chest.
But it had something new beside it.
Not hope.
Not yet.
Something like grim confidence.
They'd gone under the city and come back with more than mud on their boots.
They'd come back with proof that they could hold the line, even when the humming walls turned against them.
For now, that would have to be enough.
Tomorrow, there would be more shards.
More tunnels.
More tests.
And when they came, he'd be ready to put his hand on the stone and say no again, as many times as it took.
Outside, unseen, the cracks waited.
Inside, under chalk stars and over a ledger of lines, a father held his son and refused to let the world set the terms of their fear.