Chapter 11 — A Brother's Hand Upon the Lock

That was how it worked.

The road had been harmless.

So why would a schedule matter?

Then a schedule became names.

Names became habits.

Habits became the places I slept, the healers I trusted, the routes I took when I wanted to avoid crowds.

He never gave Ortheon everything at once.

Instead, he gave him pieces.

I learned most of this from Cassian's private records long after the damage was done. He'd written each meeting down like a man trying to prove to himself that there had been a point where he could've stopped.

Maybe there was.

Maybe there were dozens.

The morning after he received command of Aster Vale, Ortheon asked him whether I'd eaten.

Cassian frowned across the same quiet study.

"What?"

"Yesterday," Ortheon said. "Did Zyrion eat?"

"Probably."

"That isn't an answer."

Cassian leaned back.

"You're tracking his meals now?"

"I'm tracking his condition."

"He's tired."

"He's exhausted."

"There's a difference."

"Is there?"

Cassian didn't answer.

Ortheon slid a thin report across the table.

Four emergency petitions.

Three answered by me personally.

One still pending.

Cassian recognised my handwriting beside every one.

"He can't keep doing this," Ortheon said.

"He'll slow down."

"Will he?"

Cassian thought of Lareth.

Of Aster Vale.

Of finding me asleep at a desk with six unopened petitions under my arm.

"He knows his limits."

Even Cassian didn't believe that anymore.

Ortheon saw it.

He always saw the part people tried to hide.

"I don't want his secrets," he said. "I want enough information to keep him alive."

Cassian stared at the reports.

"What do you need?"

That question became easier every time he asked it.

My next destination.

Whether Seris was travelling with me.

How many soldiers I'd accept as escort.

Which entrance I used at the eastern barracks because the main gate attracted crowds.

Nothing that sounded dangerous.

Nothing that sounded like a knife.

Then came Deren Hollow.

I wasn't supposed to go.

A mining settlement two hours south of Caeloria had suffered a tunnel collapse after something beneath the mountain woke up. The local guard sent for engineers.

Somehow, the request reached me first.

Cassian found me fastening Epitaph to my back.

"No."

I looked over.

"Good morning to you too."

"You've been awake all night."

"I slept."

"You fell unconscious in a chair."

"Efficient."

"Zyrion."

Seris stood in the doorway behind him, arms folded.

For once, she wasn't smiling either.

"The guard has it handled," Cassian said.

"They don't."

"You don't know that."

"Forty-three miners are trapped."

"Engineers are already going."

"And something is moving under them."

Cassian stepped between me and the door.

"Then send soldiers."

"I am a soldier."

"No. Today you're an idiot with a sword."

"Only today?"

Normally that would've got him.

It didn't.

"You can barely keep your eyes open."

"I can reach them."

His face changed.

He hated those words now.

Not because they were wrong.

Because they worked on me every time.

"Zyrion, please."

I paused.

Cassian almost never said please.

Then another messenger arrived.

The lower tunnel had collapsed.

People were still alive.

That was enough.

I left.

Cassian swore so loudly Seris later claimed three healers crossed themselves.

They both followed.

Deren Hollow was worse than the report.

The mountain wasn't collapsing naturally.

A buried celestial parasite had wrapped itself around the mine's support veins and was feeding on magic from the rescue crews.

Every spell weakened the stone.

Every barrier made it hungrier.

Cassian worked that out first.

Of course he did.

"Stop casting!" he shouted.

A mage stared at him. "The tunnel will fall!"

"It'll fall faster if you feed that thing!"

Seris was already ripping pages from an old field manual.

"It reacts to celestial resonance. We need something without a sustained spell structure."

Everyone looked at me.

Then at Epitaph.

I sighed.

"Of course."

Cassian grabbed my arm.

"No."

"It can cut the parasite without feeding it."

"You can barely stand."

"Then I'll sit afterward."

"You're not funny."

"I disagree."

He tightened his grip.

Then the mountain shook.

Someone screamed below.

I pulled free.

"Get them out when I open the path."

Cassian's face went cold.

That commander voice returned.

"If you're doing this, you're doing it my way."

"Wouldn't dream otherwise."

That was a lie.

I went deeper than he ordered.

The parasite's anchor wasn't near the collapsed shaft.

It was beneath it.

I found miners trapped behind a wall of living crystal.

I found the creature coiled around the mountain's heart.

And I found out, very quickly, that exhaustion makes heroic plans considerably less heroic.

Epitaph severed the first tendril.

The second hit me across the chest.

I remember stone.

Blood.

Then Seris shouting my name through the communication crystal.

I stood anyway.

The world tilted.

I cut again.

The parasite opened.

I saw the anchor.

One strike.

That was all I needed.

I raised Epitaph.

Then my arm stopped working.

The creature came down on me.

Cassian reached me first.

He shouldn't have been there.

I'd ordered him to stay with the evacuation.

Apparently disobedience was contagious.

He drove a spear through the tendril above my head and dragged me backward.

"You absolute bastard!"

"Good to see you too."

"You nearly died!"

"Not yet."

"Stop joking!"

I'd never heard him shout like that.

Not at me.

Not with fear underneath it.

He got one arm under mine.

Seris appeared moments later with two soldiers.

The anchor was still exposed.

I tried moving toward it.

Cassian shoved me against the wall.

"No."

"One hit."

"No."

"People are trapped."

"And they'll stay trapped if you die and bring the ceiling down with you!"

He was right.

I hated that.

So I handed him Epitaph.

The blade rejected him instantly and burned his palm.

"Right," he hissed. "Forgot it hates me."

Despite everything, I laughed.

Seris didn't.

She looked terrified.

That finally stopped me.

We changed the plan.

Cassian directed the miners out through an old ventilation shaft. Seris used powdered nullstone instead of magic to weaken the anchor.

I only made the final cut after they cleared the chamber.

We saved thirty-nine people.

Four had died before we arrived.

Everyone called the rescue a miracle.

Cassian called it proof.

That night, while I slept under enough sedatives to knock out a wyvern, he returned to Ortheon's study.

"You were right."

Ortheon didn't smile.

About me, that was one of his smartest habits.

"Is he alive?"

"Barely."

"And next time?"

Cassian stared at his bandaged palm.

"He won't listen."

"No."

"He thinks if he can reach someone, he has to."

"Yes."

Cassian looked up.

"So what aren't you telling me?"

Ortheon was quiet for a moment.

Then he unlocked a drawer.

Inside was a set of ritual plans.

Cassian read the first page.

His stomach turned.

"No."

"Read it."

"I said no."

"It isn't a coronation."

"There are binding arrays around his Soul Crown."

"A restraint."

"A cage."

"An emergency restraint."

Cassian shoved the pages away.

"You said you weren't trying to control him."

"We aren't."

"Then burn this."

Ortheon didn't move.

"The ritual cannot activate through Council authority alone."

Cassian looked back at the plans.

There were three conditions.

Catastrophic magical instability.

Direct threat to civilian life.

Approval from a bonded anchor personally recognised by the subject.

Cassian read the last line twice.

"You need someone he trusts."

"We need someone capable of stopping him if he becomes dangerous."

"He isn't dangerous."

"Then the ritual will never be used."

Simple.

Clean.

Reasonable.

Cassian hated how reasonable it sounded.

"What would it do?"

"Suppress his magic. Immobilise him. Nothing more."

"For how long?"

"Until the danger passes."

"And the Crown?"

"Untouched."

Cassian stared at the agreement beneath the plans.

His name was already written in the designated anchor field.

"You're asking me to sign a weapon aimed at my brother."

"I'm asking you to make sure nobody ever needs to use a worse one."

Cassian thought of Deren Hollow.

My body disappearing beneath falling stone.

My blood on Seris's hands.

The way I'd still tried to stand.

He picked up the pen.

"I want conditions."

"Name them."

"No pain compliance. No memory alteration. No permanent binding. And it activates only if lives are in immediate danger."

Ortheon nodded.

"Agreed."

Cassian hesitated.

Then signed.

Later, he would tell himself fear guided his hand.

I believe him.

That's what makes it worse.

He wasn't imagining the problem.

I was exhausted.

I was reckless.

I was starting to believe everyone I could save was mine to save.

Cassian saw me walking toward a cliff and decided someone had to be able to pull me back.

He just never asked who was holding the rope.

The ink dried beneath his name.

Cassian Vale.

Bonded Anchor.

My brother in everything but blood.

The person I'd trusted to break the door if anyone ever built my cage.

And now, without hearing a single chain...

he'd signed his name onto the lock.