The braided chains lunged forward as one, black links whipping through the air like they had been waiting centuries for this exact moment.
Jax moved first, the leash snapping out in a wide arc. It caught three of the braided strands at once, glowing blue links sinking deep. The impact jolted up his arm, cold and hungry. Power flooded in immediately, but so did the voice—Lena's voice, clear and broken, coming not from the shard but from the leash itself.
"Jax… why did you leave me again?"
The words hit harder than any physical blow. For half a second his cold math stuttered. He saw her on the cot in the underlevels, water already lapping at her chin, eyes wide with the same fear he felt right now. His grip loosened for a heartbeat.
Mira didn't hesitate. She drove forward, lightning crackling across her knuckles even though it came weaker than before. Her left shoulder dipped hard with that familiar tic as she slammed a fist into the nearest braid. White sparks exploded, scorching the chain black, but the links only tightened around her wrist like they were tasting her. "Snap out of it!" she snarled, voice raw. "That's not her!"
Lira was already moving too, fingers tracing frantic circles on her thigh as she reached for another braid. The moment her skin touched the metal, her milky eyes widened. Blood poured from her nose in a steady stream. "Four futures left," she gasped. "In one of them you let the leash speak through you completely. You save us… but you never come back."
Jax clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. *Calculate. The voice is the tower using my guilt against me. Give it an inch and it takes the whole leash.* He yanked harder, feeding the new shadows into his own chain. The power surge was vicious this time—visions of Lena choking on black water while he counted coins in the alley, turning away because the pay looked better. The guilt burned white-hot, but he used it like fuel, twisting the leash until the braided chains screamed.
One of the braids wrapped around Mira's ankle and yanked. She hit the stone floor hard, lightning flaring wildly as she fought to free herself. Her shoulder tic was worse now, the old injury memory making her movements jerky. "I held my brother too long in the flood," she grunted through gritted teeth. "I won't make that mistake with you. Fight it!"
The floating shard pulsed brighter, its blue light painting the chamber in sick hues. The script on the walls rearranged again, letters crawling like insects:
SHE IS DROWNING WHILE YOU PLAY WITH SHADOWS.
Kael's presence pressed against the back of Jax's skull, dry and patient, no longer amused. *They all sound like her eventually. The leash learns the shape of what breaks you best. Feed it the shard and I can make the voice stop… for a while.*
Jax laughed once, short and ugly. "You think I trust you?" He lunged for the shard, leash whipping ahead of him. The braided chains tried to block him, but he fed the terror echo into the strike. The massive shadow he had bound earlier surged up through the floor like a dark tide, slamming into the braids and buying him the opening he needed.
His fingers closed around the shard.
The moment he touched it, the world narrowed to pain and memory.
Lena's voice filled the chamber, no longer from the leash but from everywhere at once—hoarse, desperate, the exact sound she made when the water first reached her lungs back in the real world. "You promised you'd come back with the meds. You promised, Jax."
The shard burned cold in his palm. Power poured into the leash, link after link darkening and thickening. New echoes flooded in—dozens of them, all screaming with stolen voices. Jax saw every failure in sharp, merciless detail: the day he chose one more run instead of staying with her, the night he left her alone because Rico offered triple, the moment he killed Rico and still didn't make it back in time. Each vision carried the weight of a real memory, not just the echo twisting things. The leash was learning him too well.
He dropped to one knee, teeth bared. "Not real," he growled. "None of it changes the math."
Mira ripped free of the last braid, lightning sputtering as she staggered over and grabbed his shoulder. Her hand was shaking. "Jax. Look at me. Whatever it's showing you, it's lying to make you hesitate. We need you here, not lost in whatever guilt it's feeding you."
Lira knelt on his other side, blood dripping steadily from her nose and now her ears. Her finger-circling had slowed to almost nothing. "Three futures left," she whispered. "In the worst one the shard makes the leash speak with her voice permanently. You save Cascade Spire… but you become the thing that drowns it."
The braided chains were reforming, slower now but thicker, braiding themselves into something that looked almost like a noose. The shard in Jax's hand pulsed once, then went dark, its power fully drained into his leash. The links around his wrist felt heavier than ever, alive with new hunger.
He pushed himself up, breathing through the visions that still flickered at the edges of his sight. Lena's face. Her hand slipping under black water. His own hand reaching for coins instead. The cold math came back, sharper than before. *The shard bought us time. The bleed is wider now, but so is my leash. Use the strength or lose her forever.*
"We take the exit," he said, voice flat. "Whatever's on the other side of this tower, we hit it running. No stopping until we're clear of the Trial."
Mira nodded once, her lightning finally steadying. The shoulder tic was still there, but she ignored it. "If that voice comes back, I'll fry the leash myself. Even if it means burning you with it."
Lira stood on shaky legs, wiping blood from her face. "Two futures now. In one of them we all make it out. In the other… the leash decides who leaves and who stays as payment."
The chamber doors at the far end ground open with a sound like breaking bone. Beyond them stretched a narrow bridge made of the same living chains, suspended over an endless black drop. At the far side, faint green light flickered— the exit from the First Trial, or at least the next layer of the Expanse.
Jax started walking first, the leash coiled tight in his fist. Every step sent new whispers through the links—Lena's voice mixed with dozens of others, all begging, all accusing. He forced the cold calculation to the front. *Three moves ahead. Save her. Survive the next bridge. Don't let the leash speak again.*
Halfway across, the chains under their feet began to shift and tighten, trying to pull them down into the void. Mira's lightning flared. Lira reached out to touch the living metal. Jax snapped the leash forward, feeding every new echo he had just claimed into the strike.
The bridge screamed.
And then, clear as if she were standing right beside him, Lena's voice cut through everything else:
"Jax… the water's at my chest now. Please."
The leash around his wrist tightened on its own, glowing brighter than it ever had. For one terrifying second Jax felt the cold math slip completely—his hand actually moved toward his own throat like it wanted to wrap the links there instead.
Mira grabbed his arm, lightning jumping between them. "Fight it!"
Lira's voice came faint behind them. "One future left…"
The far end of the bridge was only twenty meters away, but the chains were rising now, forming a wall of writhing black links between them and escape. The green light beyond flickered like it might vanish any second.
Jax stared at the wall of chains, Lena's voice still echoing in his skull, and felt the leash pulse with dark satisfaction.
He smiled, small, ugly, and mean—the same smile he'd worn when he killed Rico in the alley.
"Then we break through," he said.
The leash uncoiled fully, glowing with every shadow he had fed it so far, and Jax stepped straight into the writhing wall as the tower itself seemed to roar in response.