Chapter 63: CONDITION AND CONSEQUENCE

The next collision sent a pressure wave through the market. The tail controlling Sio stabbed into a silk support to keep him upright, while Angle dropped onto one knee and Sterling struck the amber beside him. Arch braced behind the Aegis, boots sliding several inches before the force passed.

Karkas had only just stepped from the shop Arch had blasted him through when the same wave hit his chest. He flew over a broken petal and landed beside one of Tavian’s roots, rolling through sticky sap before stopping hard enough that the bounty placard above Sio flickered.

Karkas pushed himself onto one elbow and looked toward the lower canyon. Tavian’s red growths had finally opened. Thousands of narrow flowers covered the surviving roots, their petals peeling apart while clouds of crimson spores drifted above the ground and clung to broken silk, mud and bodies.

Karkas stared at the spreading haze, then toward Maelor, Gant and Cestor tearing apart the upper rim. Whatever decision he made happened quickly. He pulled a small device from his belt and pressed a recessed button until a green light began blinking beneath its cracked casing.

What did you just call?

Karkas forced himself upright with the device still clenched in one hand. His attention kept returning to Tavian’s blooming flower, and Sio did not need control of his own body to understand that look. Karkas intended to be gone before those spores reached him.

The infected reached Sio’s group first. A merchant with half his face covered in blood jumped a broken gap and caught the ledge with both hands. Behind him, a dead bounty hunter dragged a snapped spear across the amber while something shifted beneath the skin of his neck. Others climbed over bodies rather than wasting time moving around them.

Eclipse closed in behind them. Rovan landed on the nearest roof hard enough to fracture the amber, while Selyn appeared farther left through the dust and more fighters spread across the surviving approaches.

Angle raised one gauntlet on instinct.

Every infected head turned toward him together.

The movement was so clean and synchronized that Sio would have preferred screaming. Angle, please stop being the brightest idiot in the canyon.

Arch saw it too. His eyes moved across the Eclipse fighters closing from both sides, the infected advancing behind them and Tavian’s roots narrowing the routes ahead. The Siphon Aegis still glowed around his arm, but something changed in the way Arch studied the battlefield. He stopped searching for a path all of them could use.

"Sterling, stay beside Sio," Arch said, moving behind Angle and raising the Aegis toward the approaching mass. Sterling looked from him to the crowd. "Why?" Arch did not turn around. "Because I said so. Move."

Sio understood before Angle did. No. Don’t do that.

The presence controlling Sio opened a portal across the next broken roof and started carrying him toward it. Sterling followed while the tail intercepted a blade from the side. Gumm stretched one narrow limb through another portal and dragged a broken railing into an Eclipse fighter’s path, giving Sterling enough time to reach the larger opening.

Angle stayed behind. "Dad, what are you doing?"

The first infected body hit the Aegis and bounced away. A second struck from another direction before Arch could fully reset his stance, then Rovan came through both of them with metal covering his arm. His fist slammed into the shield and drove Arch backward, his boots carving two lines through amber debris.

The defense held, but more attackers reached it before Arch could release the stored force. Spears struck the surface. Blades hammered from the sides. Bodies crashed into the Aegis without any attempt to protect themselves from the recoil. Arch redirected part of what he had absorbed into the flower, but another wave struck before the first discharge finished.

A translucent warning opened across his vision.

〈RAPID IMPACT ACCUMULATION〉

〈SIPHON CAPACITY DESTABILIZING〉

Arch read it without moving from the route. "Angle, go."

"I’m not leaving you." Angle stepped closer, solar light spreading across both gauntlets.

Good. Neither am I. Sio pushed against the presence moving his legs, but his body continued toward the portal. Stop. I said stop moving.

Rovan struck again. The Aegis flashed beneath his fist, and three infected bodies crashed into it almost simultaneously. Pale fractures began spreading through the glowing surface.

〈DEFENSIVE INTEGRITY FALLING〉

〈CAPACITY APPROACHING FAILURE〉

Arch forced another portion of accumulated force into the flower, throwing several attackers backward. The opening lasted less than a second. A spear struck near his shoulder, another hammered lower, and Rovan drove his transformed fist into the damaged section before the barrier had recovered.

Sio fought against his own legs until the damaged one sent a hard pulse of pain through his hip. Nothing changed. Then his right index finger moved.

That was mine.

He pushed against the control again.

Behind him, the attacks became impossible to separate. Spears, blades, bodies and Rovan’s transformed strikes hammered the Aegis too quickly for Arch to absorb and discharge them cleanly. The fractures multiplied until pale lines webbed across almost the entire shield.

〈CONDITION BREACHED〉

〈CONSEQUENCE INCOMING〉

The Aegis flickered.

Arch’s arm jerked as though something had struck through the defense from the inside. His next breath broke in the middle, but his feet remained planted. He looked once at the warning and stayed exactly where he was.

Angle saw the shield failing. "Dad, move! We have the portal!"

Arch kept himself between Angle and the crowd. The next spearhead hit one of the fractured sections and finally punched through. It tore across the outer armor and entered his side. Arch folded slightly around the impact but refused to lower the Aegis, and the rapid barrage kept exploiting every new crack before the shield could close them.

A second spear forced through lower down. Another piece of jagged metal entered beneath his shoulder while infected bodies pressed close enough for Sio to hear their feet scraping over the amber beneath the clash of weapons.

Blood spread down Arch’s coat.

Portal. Put it beside him. Come on. You’ve been stealing my body this whole time, so do something useful.

Sio forced everything he had into his right hand. His fingers curled against the control inside him, and purple light tore open beside Arch. Its edges shook under every vibration passing through the flower, but it held. The other end remained open behind Angle.

Arch looked toward it.

For one breath, Sio thought he would come.

Then Arch looked at his son. Blood had soaked one side of his coat, his breathing had turned rough and cracks covered what remained of the Aegis, yet his voice carried the same practical irritation he used whenever Angle made a mistake.

"Stop locking your left wrist when you fire."

Angle stared at him. "Dad, come through. Now."

Arch lowered the failing Aegis toward the flower, and Sio understood what he intended before Angle did. Arch, don’t you dare.

Everything still stored inside the Siphon Aegis released at once. The blast ripped through the bridge and threw infected bodies backward in a tangled wave. Rovan vanished behind broken silk and amber fragments, while the same force caught Angle across the chest and carried him toward the portal.

The presence inside Sio stopped fighting the escape and let the shockwave take them. Angle crossed first, Gumm wrapped itself around Sio’s shoulder, and Sio followed while forcing his head around far enough to keep Arch in sight.

Arch remained behind.

A spear still protruded from his side, another had torn through lower armor, and jagged metal pinned one shoulder. The shattered Aegis barely covered his arm while infected bodies began climbing over the wreckage toward him again.

Behind them, Maelor drove Cestor through part of the canyon rim while Gant dragged marked debris into Maelor’s blind side. Parasites filled the air between all three, vanishing whenever Maelor’s gravity caught them before spilling back from another direction. Above the destruction, the broker’s projections multiplied again, his laughter following the battle as though the rest of the canyon no longer existed.

Angle reached through the portal. His fingers closed on empty air several metres from his father.

Arch raised what remained of the Aegis toward the next wave.

The portal collapsed before Angle could reach him.

Sio hit cold stone hard enough to force the air from his lungs. Angle landed beside him and rolled before pushing himself onto his knees, while Sterling lay several metres away coughing against unfamiliar ground. There was no amber flower beneath them, no silk overhead and no crimson haze creeping through the air. Cold wind crossed rough stone and carried none of the sap, blood or scorched dust that had coated Sio’s tongue inside the Exchange.

Angle turned toward the empty space where the portal had vanished. One gauntlet still glowed around his hand, and his fingers remained stretched toward nothing as if refusing to accept that the distance had become impossible.

"Dad..."

Gumm pressed close against his neck without making a sound, while Sio stared at the same empty patch of air as Angle.

He could have come through.

Arch had seen the portal. He might have known exactly where it led and stood close enough to try. Instead, he had spent everything the Aegis had left making sure his son crossed before him.