Jax felt the impact travel up his arm like lightning through wet bone. The glowing links sank into the nearest rib of the god-corpse with a sound like cracking ice. Power surged back — ancient, heavy, tasting of centuries of drowned screams and forgotten prayers. It flooded his veins, sharper than anything the tower shard had given him. But with the power came the voice again, clear and unmistakable.
Lena's voice. Not twisted by the leash this time. Straight from the god-corpse itself.
"Jax… the water's in my mouth now."
The words hit harder than the Choir's chains. His cold math shattered completely for three full heartbeats. He saw her through the bleed in brutal real time: Lena in the underlevels, black water lapping at her lips, head tilted back against the cot, eyes wide and terrified. One last shallow breath. The three broken vials floated beside her like tiny dead things. She was still whispering his name, weaker, wetter, final.
The guilt wasn't a vision anymore. It was a living blade between his ribs.
He staggered. The leash drank deeper, pulling more from the god-corpse's rib. New echoes poured in, fragments of whatever ancient thing had died here long ago. The links around his wrist thickened, darkening further, faint screaming faces pressing outward from the metal like they wanted to wear his skin.
Mira was already moving, lightning exploding across her fists as she charged the nearest Choir cultist. Her left shoulder jerked violently with that old tic, the memory of her drowned brother making her punch wild and desperate. "Jax! Fight it! That's not her!" She drove her fist through a porcelain mask. The cultist dropped, but his chains slithered free and tried to latch onto her ankle. She burned them off with a scream that sounded half-rage, half-grief.
Lira pressed herself against a broken pillar, both hands on her temples now. Blood poured from her nose and ears in steady streams. Her finger-circling had stopped completely. "The futures are breaking," she gasped. "The god-corpse is answering the leash. It's using her voice because it knows what hurts you most. One future left… barely. We take a piece of the rib or we all die here."
The Choir leader stepped forward through the chaos, his cracked porcelain mask glowing green from the slit. Chains writhed around his arms like living serpents. "The echo inside you is strong," he called, voice calm and reverent over the screaming. "Give it to us willingly and we will make your girl's suffering end. Refuse and we will take the leash while she drowns in real time."
Jax felt the words like a physical hook. The bleed was wide open now. Through the leash he saw Lena clearly: water slipping between her lips, her chest no longer rising. She was still trying to say his name.
The cold math came back in a rush, sharper and meaner than ever. Three moves ahead. Take the rib fragment. Use the new power to push the bleed back. Get home before the water finishes her. He twisted the leash with a snarl and yanked hard.
A chunk of the god-corpse's rib broke free, ancient bone shattering like glass. The fragment flowed into his leash, dissolving into dark mist that settled into the links. The power hit like a tidal wave. Jax's vision sharpened until he could see every crack in the cavern stone, every porcelain mask, every drop of blood on Lira's face.
But the cost arrived immediately. Lena's voice roared through the leash, no longer a whisper.
"Jax… I'm drowning. You promised."
His hand rose toward his own throat before he caught it. The leash was trying to wrap itself there, almost gentle, almost loving.
Kael's dry voice pressed in close.
Let it happen once. Just once. I can silence her voice for you. Or keep fighting and listen to her die while you pretend you are still in control.
"Shut the fuck up," Jax snarled out loud.
He snapped the leash sideways and caught two Choir cultists mid-lunge. The links sank deep. Power flooded in again, but this time Jax didn't fight the accompanying vision. He let Lena's drowning face fill his mind deliberately, then used the raw rage it brought to rip the new echoes straight into his own leash. The cultists collapsed, masks cracking, chains slithering lifeless to the floor.
Mira reached him, breathing hard, lightning sputtering around her fists. Her shoulder was twitching so violently it looked painful. "Whatever it's showing you, use it. Don't let it break you." She turned and burned another cultist who tried to flank them, her voice cracking. "I held my brother too long in the flood. I won't watch you drown the same way."
Lira staggered forward, blood dripping steadily. She pressed her hand to the god-corpse's rib and the entire skeleton shuddered. "The futures stabilized. One clear path. We take the fragment and run. The Choir leader is binding something from the other side of the corpse. If he finishes first, the whole isle sinks."
The Choir leader laughed softly behind his mask. "The leash-bearer still thinks he controls it. Watch him become what we worship."
Jax felt the new god-corpse echo settle inside the leash. It was stronger than anything he had taken before; ancient, vast, hungry. The links now had faint green veins running through the blue glow. The affection in the leash's grip was unmistakable. It no longer felt like a tool. It felt like something that had chosen him.
He looked at Mira and Lira. Both bloodied, exhausted, but still standing. Still with him.
"The fragment is ours," he said, voice flat. "We run for the far tunnel. No more fighting. No more deals."
Mira nodded once, lightning flaring. Lira wiped blood from her chin, fingers starting their slow circle again. The god-corpse's remaining ribs began to shift, the carved script crawling faster, spelling warnings in languages that hurt to read.
The Choir leader raised both hands. His chains whipped forward like a storm of black serpents. "Take the leash from him. The echo wants to be free."
Jax turned and ran toward the far side of the cavern where a narrow tunnel mouth glowed faint green, it was the way out, or at least the next layer of the Expanse. Mira and Lira ran with him. Behind them the Choir surged forward, chanting rising to a scream.
The leash drank the last traces of the god-corpse fragment and pulsed once, warm and satisfied.
Lena's voice came through it again, softer now, almost tender.
"Jax… the water's over my head."
He didn't look back. But the thought in his head locked into place, sharper and meaner than it had ever been.
Three moves ahead. Reach the next isle. Use the new power. Get home before the water finishes what the leash started.
The tunnel swallowed them, and the god-corpse's final groan rolled through the cavern like laughter.