The Sub-Cuts rejected urgency.
When the predator lunged, space did not yield quickly enough to accommodate violence. The thing struck a fraction too early, its geometry misaligned with the chamber's shifting grammar. That error cost it shape.
Its forward mass sheared.
Not cut—misfiled.
Half of its advancing form slipped into a neighboring assumption of space, leaving behind a trailing remainder that screamed without sound as it was stretched thin across incompatible definitions.
The chamber convulsed.
Lines ignited across the floor and walls, prime incisions flaring as the Sub-Cuts attempted to reassert their original purpose: separation without consequence.
The Inquisitor was thrown backward, armor scraping stone as she slammed into a wall that briefly forgot it was solid. She rolled, came up on one knee, sword raised—edge ruined but still dangerous.
"Tareth!" she shouted. "Do something now!"
He already was.
The blade in his hand had begun to change.
Not glowing.
Not sharpening.
Simplifying.
Its reflection no longer showed the chamber. It showed intersections—points where decisions converged. Where definition became unavoidable.
The predator recovered quickly, reassembling itself with new efficiency. Its outline tightened, angles aligning closer to Kaelvar symmetry—not perfect, but intentional.
It had learned from the sword's presence.
Worse—it had learned from Tareth's hesitation.
The thing did not attack again.
It circled.
Each step rewrote a small rule: distance bent, angles collapsed, cuts along the walls deepened where its attention lingered. It was not trying to kill.
It was trying to understand the error that birthed it.
"This is my fault," Tareth said quietly.
The Inquisitor spat blood. "Everything down here is someone's fault. That doesn't make it yours."
The predator paused, head tilting—not toward the Inquisitor, but toward the prime incision at the chamber's center.
It felt it.
So did the sword.
The prime incision pulsed—a thin void between the split pillar halves, older than Ironreach, older than Kaelvar denial. A place where the world had once been cut cleanly and then abandoned mid-thought.
If the predator reached it…
It would not become stronger.
It would become coherent.
"Tareth," the Inquisitor said, voice tight, "if that thing integrates with the prime incision—"
"It won't hunt rules anymore," Tareth finished. "It'll write them."
The predator moved.
Not toward them.
Toward the incision.
Tareth stepped into its path.
His body screamed protest. Blood soaked his side. His arm trembled.
The blade did not correct him.
Good.
This cut had to be his.
He raised the sword—not in a Kaelvar stance, not in any form he had been taught. He angled the edge slightly wrong, violating efficiency, introducing deviation on purpose.
The predator lunged to intercept him.
Tareth cut.
Not the creature.
Not the incision.
He cut the relationship between them.
The space between predator and prime incision collapsed inward, folding into itself like a page torn from a book that no longer agreed on its story. The predator howled—not in pain, but in sudden disorientation—as its intent lost meaning.
The prime incision dimmed.
But the backlash was immediate.
The Sub-Cuts screamed.
The chamber began to destabilize, prime lines flaring wildly as the system attempted to compensate for a cut that should not have been possible.
The Inquisitor was hurled aside again, armor cracking.
The predator reeled—then adapted.
It turned its attention fully to Tareth.
Now it understood him.
Now it wanted him.
"You can't keep doing this," the Inquisitor shouted over the collapsing geometry. "Every cut you make teaches it!"
"I know," Tareth replied, breath ragged. "That's why the next one has to end the lesson."
The sword vibrated violently, resisting—not out of disobedience, but out of fear of finality.
Tareth tightened his grip anyway.
Above them, Ironreach felt the tremor and finally acknowledged what it had been refusing to name.
This was no containment scenario.
This was a succession crisis.
And the edge—broken, interrupted, learning—
was no longer choosing sides.
It was choosing authors.