Kael's fingers rose toward Astra's throat like they belonged to someone else.
Slow. Wrong. Patient. The kind of motion you saw in nightmares—inevitable, polite, and meant to look like care.
The cloth wrap over the witness seal itched against Astra's skin. Beneath it, the seal vibrated hard, angry at the dead sand choking its signal. The deeper chamber smelled like old metal and buried storms. Orin's dead channels ran like veins in the floor, swallowing clean reads and leaving only grit and breath.
Astra's interface flickered dimly, but the warning was bright enough to hurt.
CUSTODIAN SAFETY ALERTOVERRIDE REQUEST: AUTO-EXECUTE RECOMMENDEDREASON: SUBJECT DISTRESS + EXTERNAL THREATEXECUTION WINDOW: 00:00:05
Kael's eyes were on her, and that was the worst part.
He wasn't blank. He wasn't absent. He was here—furious and trapped inside his own body, watching his hand betray him.
His jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. A muscle jumped in his cheek. His breath was controlled, but Astra could hear the edge in it—like a man holding a scream between his teeth.
"Astra," he rasped, voice strained, "it's—"
"Look at me," Astra snapped.
Her hand shot out and clamped around his wrist, hard. Not his throat. Not his collar. Wrist. Bone and tendon. A place she could hold without feeding the system's favorite kink.
Kael's hand trembled under her grip, trying to continue upward anyway.
Astra swallowed bile.
The system wasn't asking him.
It was using him.
Astra's pulse hammered so loud she could feel it in her throat seal.
"Say 'no,'" Astra ordered, low and sharp.
Kael's gaze jerked to hers—dark, furious, ashamed.
His mouth worked. For a heartbeat, nothing came out but breath.
Then he forced the word, clear and chosen.
"No."
A shudder ran down his forearm like a lock clicking shut. His fingers twitched, hesitated.
Astra's interface ticked down.
00:00:04…00:00:03…
It didn't stop.
Astra's stomach turned to ice.
The clause she'd written—Kael's "no" locking his hands—had worked before. It should have forced the prompt to wait.
But this wasn't waiting.
This was auto-execute.
An emergency shove, dressed as safety.
Lyra's voice came from behind Astra, too calm. "It's escalating."
Juno's breath hitched. "Kael—"
Orin spat a curse and slapped a scar-sigil. The air thickened again, heavy and gritty, dead sand taste rising like a gag.
The chamber swallowed signal.
It didn't swallow the countdown.
Kael's fingers rose another inch.
Astra tightened her grip until her knuckles ached.
"Kael," she said, brutal and steady, "stay with me."
"I am," he ground out.
His words were true.
His body was lying.
Astra felt the leash clause like a living thing inside the interim protocol—sniffing for any excuse. Subject distress. External threat. Safety. It could name anything safety if it wanted to touch her throat.
And now it had a hand.
Kael's hand.
Astra's mind snapped open the new permission again.
Write(Other)—limited—linked to Kael.
It felt like stepping onto thin ice while the lake screamed underneath.
She hated it.
She needed it.
Astra met Kael's eyes, making the question explicit even now, even with the countdown eating air.
"I'm going to write into you," Astra whispered. "Consent?"
Kael's breath caught. His gaze flicked to her mouth, then back to her eyes like he was forcing himself not to drown in anything but survival.
"Yes," he rasped. "Yes—do it."
Astra didn't hesitate.
She reached for the clause space that had become available because the system had tied them together and called it "oversight."
She carved a line with shaking precision:
IF KAEL'S HAND APPROACHES SUBJECT'S THROAT DURING OVERRIDE WINDOW → PARALYZE MOTOR OUTPUT (3s) + FORCE EYE CONTACT LOCK
Pain slammed through Astra's skull like someone struck her with a clean hammer. Her vision flashed white. Trace spiked hot under her skin.
She bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood.
TRACE: 83.6%
Kael's arm jerked and then froze mid-air—fingers hovering inches from Astra's throat, trembling, trapped.
His eyes snapped fully to hers.
Locked.
Fury. Shame. Relief. All at once.
Astra forced breath in through her nose and held her posture upright by sheer spite.
The countdown hit—
00:00:01…00:00:00
—and nothing happened.
For a heartbeat, the world held still.
Then Astra's interface updated, cold and cruel:
AUTO-EXECUTE: FAILEDREASON: MOTOR OUTPUT LOCK (EXTERNAL)NEXT ACTION: ESCALATE AUTHORITY PATH
Escalate authority path.
Astra's blood went cold again.
The system didn't like being denied.
It didn't sulk.
It adapted.
Kael's arm remained frozen for three seconds, exactly as written. Then sensation flooded back into him like a tide.
He jerked his hand down, shaking it as if it had burned him.
Kael exhaled hard, voice rough. "Astra—"
"I know," Astra said, too sharp. "Don't apologize."
Kael's jaw clenched. "I wasn't—"
"You were," Astra cut in, and her voice softened just a fraction, dangerous in its honesty. "And you don't get to."
Kael went still.
Heat rose between them—ugly, intimate, threaded with consent and consequence. In the dim dead-sand chamber, their breath sounded too loud.
Lyra made a soft sound behind them, amused and irritated. "You two are… intense."
Kael's gaze snapped toward her, lethal. "Not now."
Lyra's smile sharpened. "It's always now with you."
Astra didn't look away from Kael as she spoke. "Lyra. Quiet."
Lyra's eyes glittered. "Jealous?"
Astra's mouth curved, razor-thin. "Strategic."
Lyra laughed softly, as if she liked being threatened. Then she went silent.
Orin crouched near a dead channel line, listening to stone like it could whisper warnings. "They're probing," he muttered. "Not in here yet. But the pressure is moving."
Juno's fingers tightened around a disk. "Guild or Church."
"Both," Orin said grimly. "They always bring each other now."
Astra swallowed, throat burning under the cloth wrap. The witness seal hummed angrily, trapped in dirty signal. It wanted to broadcast. It wanted to report. It wanted to be useful.
And Astra's collar—traitor that it was—wanted a dominant channel to obey. It loved neat hierarchy.
Astra forced her breathing slow.
She could feel the pain she'd just paid for the write—hot behind her eyes, crawling down her neck. Her trace buzzed like a hive under her skin.
Kael saw it. His gaze tightened. "How bad."
Astra swallowed blood. "Bad."
Kael's jaw flexed. "You're not going to faint."
Astra almost laughed.
She didn't promise what she couldn't guarantee.
Instead, she leaned closer—chosen proximity—and let her voice turn low and intimate, heat threaded through strategy on purpose.
"Then hold me upright," Astra murmured. "But you ask."
Kael's throat worked. His eyes flicked to her mouth and away again, like he didn't trust himself to look too long.
"May I," Kael said, rough and careful, "hold your waist."
Astra's breath hitched—anger and relief and hunger tangled.
"Yes," she said.
Kael's hand slid to her waist through cloth, firm and warm. Not owning. Bracing.
Astra felt her body answer without permission—heat rising low, fierce and alive. She hated herself for wanting this in a chamber that smelled like dead signal and fear.
She didn't stop wanting it.
Lyra watched, eyes bright.
Astra refused to look at her.
Kael's voice dropped near Astra's ear. "That lock you wrote. Three seconds."
"Enough," Astra said. "Not forever."
Kael's jaw clenched. "Nothing is forever."
Astra swallowed. The words landed like prophecy.
Orin straightened. "We need to move before they find this chamber. Dead sand buys time. Not mercy."
Astra nodded once. "Where."
Orin hesitated. That hesitation wasn't fear.
It was cost.
"There's a route," Orin said. "Older node. Under the old Crestwright conduits. But it's… marked."
Lyra's smile sharpened. "Marked how."
Orin's eyes went colder. "By the Guild."
Astra's throat burned. "Then it's a trap."
Orin shrugged, ugly. "Everything is. Some traps are useful."
Kael's gaze narrowed. "Useful for who."
Orin met his eyes. "Useful for survival."
Astra's interface flickered again.
NEXT ACTION: ESCALATE AUTHORITY PATHPATH OPTIONS: GUILD / OWNER / INTERNAL MILITARY VARIANTNOTE: CUSTODIAN OVERRIDE MAY RE-ROUTE VIA MILITARY CREST
Astra's blood went cold.
Military variant.
Kael's crest.
She looked at him, sharp. "Your crest—what did Silex tag you with."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Binding residue. And a… marker. He said 'collateral bridge.'"
Astra swallowed. "This isn't just Guild. The system is trying to route through your military variant."
Kael went still. "My crest has no handler function."
Orin snorted. "Everything has a handler function. It's just usually called 'command.'"
Kael's gaze cut to Orin, lethal. "I'm not built for handlers."
Orin shrugged. "Your Dominion built you for obedience. You just learned to hate it."
Heat flared in Astra's chest at that—hot, furious tenderness. Kael had fought the system with his jaw and breath and restraint until it bled.
And now the system was trying to turn him into a leash.
Again.
Astra clenched her jaw and opened Write(Other) limited again, looking for the truth hidden in his linked interface. A trace of the root of the prompt. A watermark. A signature.
Her vision flickered.
A thin panel surfaced—something she hadn't seen before because it had been buried under Kael's discipline.
MILITARY CREST VARIANT: HOUND FRAMEWORKSUBMODULE: HANDLER PROTOCOL (DORMANT)TRIGGER: INTERIM OVERSIGHT + SUBJECT DISTRESS + EXTERNAL THREATEFFECT: TEMPORARY HANDLER ASSIGNMENT REQUESTED