Wood splintered. The tower door burst inward and three pale-masked figures spilled through in a tangle of black robes and rattling chains. Their masks were smooth porcelain, blank except for narrow slits for eyes and a single vertical line where the mouth should be. Each had lengths of chain wrapped around their forearms like ritual jewelry, the links glowing faint sickly green.
The Hollow Choir had arrived. That was them.
Jax moved before the first one fully crossed the threshold. The leash snapped out, glowing blue links catching the lead cultist across the chest. The impact lifted the man off his feet and slammed him into the far wall. Power surged back; raw, cold, tasting of stolen devotion. But with it came another flash of Lena: water at her collarbones now, her weak cough turning into a wet rattle. The vision was sharper than before, the bleed feeding him real-time glimpses like a knife twisting deeper.
Calculate, he thought, forcing the cold math through the guilt. *Three attackers in front. Riven and his people at the back. The door's the only exit. Take the leader fast or they swarm.*
Mira was already charging. Lightning crackled up her arms as she drove her fist into the second cultist's mask causing the porcelain to shatter. The woman underneath screamed as electricity punched through her skull, but she didn't fall. Instead the chains on her forearms whipped forward like living things, wrapping Mira's wrist. Mira's left shoulder jerked hard with that old tic, the memory of her drowned brother making her movements jagged. "Get these fucking things off of me!"
Lira pressed herself against the wall, fingers tracing frantic circles on her thigh. Blood poured from her nose in a steady stream. "The futures are gone," she whispered. "All of them. Something's blocking me. They brought a nullifier."
Riven and his scarred woman moved with practiced brutality. The one-eyed man buried his knife in a cultist's throat while his partner slashed another across the hamstrings. But the Choir didn't fight like normal Cursed. When one fell, the chains on their arms slithered free and tried to latch onto the nearest living person, whispering in low, overlapping voices.
"The leash remembers."
"The leash chooses."
"The leash becomes."
Jax felt his own leash pulse in answer, almost eager. Kael's dry voice slid in. They worship what you carry. Give them a taste and they'll worship you instead. Or keep fighting and watch them take me by force.
"Shut up," Jax growled.
He whipped the leash again, wrapping a cultist's legs and yanking hard and it hit the floor, its mask cracking. Underneath was a woman with hollow eyes and ritual scars carved into her cheeks. She smiled up at him with bloody teeth. "The echo in you is strong. It wants to be free. Let us help it wear you."
The words hit like the tower voices all over again. Jax saw Lena clearly through the bleed; water past her shoulders now, her head tilted back to keep her mouth above the rising flood. She was still whispering his name, weaker each time. The three broken vials floated beside her cot like tiny corpses.
The guilt punched low, but he used it. He twisted the leash tighter until the cultist's legs snapped with a wet crunch. "My leash. My choice."
Mira finally ripped free of the wrapping chains, lightning exploding outward in a wild arc that scorched two more cultists who had slipped through the door. Her shoulder was twitching violently now. "They're not here for the outpost," she shouted. "They're here for you. For that thing on your wrist."
Riven backed toward the rear exit, knife dripping. "The Choir's been hunting leashes for months. They think binding enough echoes will let them become the new gods of the Expanse. Your fresh one smells like a feast."
The scarred woman beside him cursed as a detached chain latched onto her arm. She hacked at it with her blade, but the links only tightened. "We can't hold them. Take the back tunnel if you want to live!"
Lira suddenly cried out. She had stopped circling her thigh. Both hands pressed to her temples. "I see it now. They have a nullifier shard. It's blocking my visions, but it's also calling something bigger. The god-corpse we need is waking because of the bleed. If we don't reach it before the Choir, the whole isle sinks."
Jax felt the leash grow warmer, almost affectionate again. It liked the chaos. It liked being wanted. He could feel Kael and the newer echoes pressing against the inside of his mind, testing the limits of the leash like fingers probing for weak links.
Three moves ahead, he forced himself to think while another cultist lunged at him with chains whipping like tentacles. Break the nullifier. Reach the god-corpse. Use whatever power we find there to push the bleed back far enough to buy Lena another day. The math was clean again. Cold. Necessary.
He snapped the leash forward and caught the cultist mid-lunge. The links sank deep. Power flooded in, but this time Jax didn't fight the accompanying vision. He let Lena's drowning face fill his mind for one deliberate second, then used the rage it brought to rip the shadow free and feed it straight back into his own leash. The cultist collapsed, mask cracking completely, eyes empty.
The nullifier shard: a small, black, pulsing green object fell from the dead man's robe and rolled across the floor.
Lira lunged for it, blood dripping from her face. The moment her fingers closed around it, her milky eyes cleared. "The futures are back," she gasped. "We have one clear path to the god-corpse. But the Choir leader is already on the isle. He's coming for the leash personally."
Mira smashed the last cultist in the room with a lightning-charged boot. She was breathing hard, her shoulder still twitching. "Then we stop playing defense. We go for the god-corpse now. Tonight."
Riven wiped his knife on his sleeve. His good eye met Jax's. "You fed my ward. I owe you the tunnel. But after that, we're even. The Choir doesn't forgive people who carry what they want."
Jax coiled the leash. It felt stronger again, the new echo settling in with a quiet hunger. Lena's voice had gone silent for the moment, but he could still feel her through the bleed, water at her neck now, head tilted back, eyes half-closed.
He looked at Mira and Lira. Both were bloodied, exhausted, but still standing. Still with him.
"We move," he said. "Tunnel to the god-corpse. No stops. No deals. If the Choir leader wants the leash, he can try to take it from my corpse."
The back tunnel door creaked open behind Riven. Damp stone steps led downward into darkness that smelled of brine and old rot.
Jax started down first, leash glowing faint blue to light the way.
Behind them, the chanting outside rose again, closer now, dozens of voices speaking as one.
"The leash remembers."
"The leash chooses."
"The leash becomes us."
Jax smiled, small and mean, as the tunnel swallowed them.
Let them come, he thought. I'll make every last one of them pay the same price I'm paying.
The leash pulsed once in answer, warm and patient, as if it already knew exactly how much more it would take before the end.