Six seconds where the seal couldn't scream.
Six seconds where Astra could take action without lighting the entire clean network on fire again.
Astra didn't waste them.
She lunged—not at Silex, not at the attendants.
At the floating contract projection.
She shoved her palm through it like it was fog and grabbed the physical anchor point: a thin metal bar above Kael's bench where the projector was mounted.
She ripped.
Pain spiked through her shoulder.
The projector snapped loose with a harsh crack. The clean light stuttered. The hovering words blinked out.
The cart's containment lines trembled.
Kael's eyes flared. He understood instantly.
No projection meant no clean prompt. No clean prompt meant Silex had to do this the old way—by direct command and physical bind.
Dirty.
Risky.
Human.
Silex moved fast—too fast.
He grabbed Astra's wrist mid-motion.
Not her collar. Not the seal.
Her wrist, where he could control her without triggering the collar's self-defense tantrums.
His grip was cold, practiced.
"Enough," Silex said, and the word wasn't a request.
A lattice of pale lines snapped tighter around Astra's torso—containment geometry responding to enforcement contact.
Astra's body stiffened.
Her stabilizer vow fought it, but the grid had priority inside this audit cell.
Kael's voice went low, sharp. "Astra—look at me."
Astra met his eyes, breath catching.
"Breathe," Kael ordered, deliberate and structured. "Keep your feet under you."
Astra breathed.
The grid didn't vanish.
But her panic didn't get to drive.
Silex's grip tightened. "You are now recorded as hostile interference."
The seal at Astra's throat vibrated, angry at being denied broadcast.
The six seconds were bleeding away.
Orin's voice hissed from somewhere outside the cart, faint through the chaos. "Astra—MOVE!"
Juno's disks screamed briefly—dirtying the grid again, forcing a momentary stutter in the containment lines.
Astra used it.
She twisted her wrist in Silex's grip—not trying to break free by strength, but by angle—rotating into the weak point of his hold.
Silex adjusted instantly, but that adjustment was a crack.
Kael's body surged within his own containment lines, not breaking them—testing them.
He couldn't stand yet.
But he could move enough.
Kael snapped his heel up and drove it into the cart's inner panel near Silex's knee.
The impact wasn't a dramatic kick.
It was a precise, ugly jolt—enough to make Silex shift his weight.
Enough to make his grip loosen for a fraction.
Astra tore free.
Her seal's six-second suspension ended.
The moment it did, the witness seal tried to scream again—hungry to report hostile flight.
Astra slammed her palm to her collar and triggered Delay Loop.
Pain promised—delayed.
And in that delay gap, she stole the only thing that mattered:
Time.
She grabbed Kael's forearm through the hovering containment lines—contact that made her skin prickle, like touching static.
"Consent?" she rasped.
Kael's eyes burned into hers. "Yes."
Astra pulled.
The containment lines fought, resisting like polite hands.
Kael pushed up from the bench at the same time, jaw clenched, breath controlled.
His body shook once—governor load protesting the strain.
He didn't collapse.
He rose into a crouch, then a half-stand, shoulders tight, eyes locked on Astra like she was the only clean signal in the world.
Silex snarled—a rare crack in his calm—and lunged again.
Kael moved between them.
Not a lunge. Not a tackle.
A shield.
Kael's shoulder took Silex's grip instead of Astra's wrist.
A sharp flare of pale geometry sparked across Kael's shoulder where he'd already been tagged earlier.
Pain flashed across Kael's face.
He swallowed it.
Astra's chest tightened with heat and fury.
"Kael," she whispered.
Kael's voice was rough. "Go."
Astra didn't go.
She stepped in close, chest nearly brushing his, and spoke into the space only he could hear.
"If you break," she murmured, breath warm at his jaw, "break toward me."
Kael's eyes darkened.
He didn't answer with words.
He answered by keeping his body between Silex and Astra even as the containment lines tried to pull him back into tidy compliance.
Outside, Juno's interference shrieked again.
Orin slammed a palm to stone.
The cart lurched as the seam under the wheel widened, trying to swallow the vehicle.
The whole lane groaned.
People screamed.
And above it all, the witness seal on Astra's throat—blocked by Delay Loop for six seconds—counted down with cold patience inside her nerves.
Astra's six-second gap was closing.
The pain debt was coming.
The broadcast was coming.
Silex's hand shot out again—this time toward Astra's throat.
Not the collar.
The seal.
If he touched the seal, he could force audit lock clean and immediate.
Kael reacted like instinct given teeth.
He grabbed Silex's wrist mid-reach and twisted—hard.
Silex's eyes flared.
Guild geometry snapped into place, binding Kael's forearm like a cuff made of light.
Kael's jaw clenched.
He didn't let go.
He held Silex's wrist anyway, shaking with effort.
Astra's breath hitched.
Kael's governor load was climbing.
She could see it in the tightness around his eyes, the tremor in his shoulder.
He was seconds from a collapse.
Astra's delay gap was ending.
She had one option left that didn't require touching Kael's crest, didn't require another self-write, didn't require signing anything.
Voice.
She stepped close behind Kael's shoulder and spoke his name like a command written as care.
"Kael Raithe," Astra said, low and steady, "if your governor spikes, you will lock your jaw and breathe until it passes."
Kael's throat worked.
Then he obeyed—jaw locking, breath forcing slow.
His tremor steadied into control.
Not because the pain was gone.
Because the rule gave him a rail to hold.
Silex's eyes narrowed.
He felt it—the way Kael's body refused to tip into the clean obedience the Guild expected.
Meros's voice floated from outside the cart, polite and sharp. "Warden-Crafter. Enough damage. Take the subject."
Take.
Astra's blood turned cold.
The witness seal vibrated.
Delay Loop ended.
Pain hit Astra's nerves like fire poured down her spine.
Her vision went white.
She bit her tongue to keep from screaming.
Kael's voice cut through the white, rough and urgent. "Astra—breathe!"
Astra forced air in.
Her knees buckled.
Kael caught her—arm around her ribs—holding her upright with brutal gentleness.
Not owning. Not pinning.
Bracing.
Silex used the moment.
His fingers brushed Astra's throat seal.
Cold metal under his touch.
The seal lit up—pleased, hungry, obedient.
Astra's interface screamed.
AUDIT LOCK: FULL ENGAGEMENT IMMINENTBROADCAST: READYSTATUS: SUBJECT CAPTURE AUTHORIZED
Astra fought the panic with every ounce of stubbornness she had left.
She reached for her stabilizer vow—and felt it strain against the seal's priority channel like a small blade pressed against a shield.
Kael's body tightened around her, shielding without thinking.
His breath hit her hair.
His voice dropped into her ear, low and furious and intimate in the ugliest way: a promise made under a knife.
"I will not let them take you," Kael rasped.
Astra's vision sharpened just enough to see Silex's eyes—flat, satisfied.
Meros's voice remained calm outside. "Subject Astra Vey. By Guild emergency statute—"
A new sound cut through the lane.
Not Guild hum.
Not Underchain seam groan.
A hymn—soft, distant, carrying on night air like perfume.
The Church.
Astra's blood went ice.
Silex's head turned slightly, irritated.
Meros's polite voice faltered for the first time. "Impossible."
A pale light bloomed at the end of the lane—cleaner than lanterns, warmer than Guild lines.
A figure stepped into it, hood down.
Seraphine Lume.
She smiled as if she'd been invited.
"Good evening," Seraphine called gently, voice carrying with terrible ease. "I heard there was a soul in distress."
Astra's collar pulsed at the sound of sanctity.
The Guild seal pulsed at the sound of authority.
And somewhere inside Astra's nerves, silk laughed quietly.
Dorian's voice slid in, warm as breath against her throat.
"My party keeps growing," he murmured.
Astra stood in Kael's arms inside the tilted cart, trapped between Guild geometry and holy light, and her interface offered one final, merciless update:
CLAIM CONFLICT: TRIANGULATED — RESOLUTION REQUIRED.