CHAPTER 663: POLLEN, SAP, AND SHARD DUST (END)

"Cut!" Thalatha barked, voice sharp as an officer’s whistle.

The Riftborne’s staff flicked. The halo snuffed. The shard dropped, an ordinary lump of bone again, dumb and harmless. The Crymber Twins moved in mirrored steps—pale frost kissed the filament, ember heat snapped it brittle. It cracked into glitter that smelled metallic, then faded. Hypnoveils lifted their mantles and threw a soft blind at the lotus, as if closing a curtain in an old house when a storm flashes. Rodion vented sterilant that burned Mikhailis’s nose clean and left the air sudden and empty.

The seed inside the lotus twitched like a sulking child and went still again. The chain settled with a tired sigh.

Mikhailis let the tension bleed out of his jaw. He hadn’t realized until now he was grinding teeth. "We got what we needed." His heart ticked hard. Sower. Borrowed bark. I will find you. He tucked the words away like knives.

Thalatha looked at the Riftborne—not afraid now, cautious and... respectful. The ritual had stayed inside its frame. No reaching fingers. No stolen names. "Ethics were kept," she said. "You have my word."

The Riftborne lowered the staff tip to the edge of her bracer. It stayed there for a heartbeat, then lifted. Not a bargain. An acknowledgment between professionals who understood lines.

Rodion’s optic pulsed. Vector confirmed: off-axis tunnels under the old riverbed. Time to objective: indeterminate. Hostile pressure at outer gates: increasing. A deeper thud came from beyond the boss door, slower, heavier—the sound of ranks forming.

"Then we move." Mikhailis turned to the cohort. He realized he had introduced them as tools. That was not enough. He went to each variant and spoke its name again, not as function but as identity, his voice dropping a shade. He touched carapace or mantle or spool with fingers that remembered old training yards and quiet mornings in a lab. The Scurabon clicked a soft rhythm back, like tapping a code against a bedframe. A Silk Guard tapped a spinneret twice and straightened. The Myco-Archivist brushed his sleeve again as if making sure he looked presentable for danger. Mothcloak’s pinion brushed his coat and left no dust at all; a small comfort, absurd and perfect.

Thalatha watched him, then surprised herself by standing straighter. She gave them the Hollowguard salute a second time, with her voice carrying more weight, as if speaking across a courtyard full of recruits. "You fight under my sight," she said, "and you have my promise of guard and grief."

The Aeriform Striders’ plumes thrummed like distant rain. No words, but something in the line of their bodies warmed.

The chamber answered them. The dais shivered. The spiral pattern engraved there rotated, slow at first, then faster. Root ribs writhed and laced, growing into a lift that was slick and ribbed like the inside of a huge throat. Light bled along the edges in a clean white, not the Blight red. The boss gate behind them boomed in unison now, no longer random fists but a phalanx organizing into a machine.

The Whiteways are opening, Rodion said. Archive immune pathways re-routing around damage. Advise departure within one minute to avoid encirclement.

Mikhailis leaned over the lotus, checked the chain again, and nodded to the Silks. "Cradle."

The Silk Guards and Tanglebeetles worked in a beautiful, wordless knot. Gray and clear strands mixed in a web-seat that held the lotus tight without touching the petals. They tested each line with a tug, then anchored it to the harness crossbars at his hips. When they were done, the load rode low and close, like a child in a sling. He shifted once; the web flexed and settled with him.

"Good," he said quietly. He laid a hand on the cradle. The seed whined in a register only his nerves seemed to hear. You can cry. You’re still coming with me.

"Aeriforms, sift the air," he called. The Striders raised their plumes and angled them outward, catching breaths of corridor wind that slid under the lift like tide. "Hypnoveils, mirror curtains on my mark." The mantles lifted a fraction, eye-spots dim. "Scurabons, flank." Sickles lowered in promise. "Crymber Twins, anchor center." Frost and ember stood shoulder to shoulder, posture like pillars. "Tangles, lines left and right. Mothcloak, rear shadow."

The little ant platoon took their places, forming a diamond around the two humans and Rodion. It made Thalatha blink; the pattern looked like a real unit now, not trinkets. She saw lanes, firing arcs, fallback points. She felt the strange comfort of formation settle on her shoulders like a cloak that had always fit.

She eyed them, then looked at him. "Do they... take lunch?" The question slipped out dry, because humor sometimes kept hands from shaking.

"Sap breaks every ninety minutes," Mikhailis said, deadpan. "Also, they like compliments. Praise increases output by...." He tilted his head as if listening to an imaginary study. "...a lot."

Thalatha turned solemnly to a Silk Guard. "Excellent knots."

The little abdomen lifted, just a little. A preen, proud and shy at once. She almost laughed, and the ache in her ribs didn’t feel as sharp.

The outer gate cracked. Dust spilled like flour through the seam, falling in a soft sheet. A spear of cold air knifed across the hall. The fists outside stopped. For one second there was nothing. Then—boom. In rhythm. A line advancing.

"Rodion," Mikhailis said, stepping onto the lift. "Call rhythm."

Marking cadence. Three counts down, two counts steady, repeat. Hold center mass; avoid edges. Rodion rolled forward until his shoulder brushed Mikhailis’s hip. His optic threw a narrow beam that drew stripes across the lift’s ribs. The beam pulsed in time with the machine’s hidden heart.

Thalatha stepped on beside them, testing the slick surface with her boot. It gave slightly under her weight, then held. The Crymber Twins flanked her without asking. The Hypnoveils drew a faint curtain of shimmer in the air behind them that blurred the view of the fracturing gate.

Mikhailis set one hand on the lotus cradle and the other on the lift’s rib. He met Thalatha’s eyes for half a breath. Down we go. He found a grin from somewhere that wasn’t arrogance this time. "After you, Captain."

She snorted, the sound small and stubborn. "In your dreams, Prince."

The lift shuddered, accepted their weight, and began to move. The Whiteways’ breath washed over them, warm and cool in turns, like stepping into the tide at night.

They descended.

The Whiteways breathed. The air moved in long, slow pulses that sounded like a giant sleeping. The root walls glistened. Here and there calcified plaque blunted a curve, old scar tissue from a war older than any of them.

The first hazard announced itself with a hiss. Ahead, a mouth in the wall puckered and exhaled a fine mist that glittered green. It hit a patch of stone and made it smoke.

"Pulse vents," Mikhailis said. "Timing."

The Aeriform Striders lifted their plumes and sang a whisper hum. It warbled, rose, dipped. Rodion marked the rhythm with a blinking line across the floor. One‑and—two—three—exhale. Four—five—six—rest.

"Crymber," Mikhailis said. "Ice, then ember."

The pale Twin stepped in and breathed frost onto the vent mouth. It crackled, skinnering white. The ember Twin tapped with a hot palm. The frost fractured, clogging the valve. Slimeweave flowed forward and painted a neutral gel along the drips so the acid died the instant it touched.

Thalatha counted under her breath. On six she waved the column through. They slipped past the clogged mouths while the vents tried and failed to spit. The lotus hummed against his hip. Mikhailis hummed back, a low counter‑tone that kept it from pitching higher.

The second hazard carpeted the floor like bruised velvet. Memory moss. When Mikhailis’s boot touched it, whispers slid in through his ears and into old rooms: You left them. Fool prince. Useless. Play at bugs while the city burns.

Thalatha stiffened. The moss loved her more. It fed her the burning outpost. It pressed her aunt’s name against her teeth.

"Veils," Mikhailis said, soft. "Honest echoes."

The Hypnoveils unfurled their mantles in a beat, eye‑spots blooming and dimming. They did not paint lies. They painted what had just happened: Thalatha running when her feet didn’t want to, arrow true, voice steady, the seed bound. They showed her hand on his arm when he almost fell. They showed the moment she had said, I witness, and meant it.

"You moved when it counted," Mikhailis said, plain.

She stepped. The moss whispered, then lost its thread. It dimmed under her soles and stayed dim.

The third hazard tried to eat the last of them. A zipper row of tooth‑runes lined the corridor—flat at first, harmless. As the group crossed, the first tooth lifted behind the last ant with a soft, eager click.

"Tangles," Mikhailis called. "Cross‑tension now."

Beetles spat lines that crisscrossed the corridor like a tailor pinning a hem. Scurabons darted along the edges and scissored hinge pins as the teeth tried to rise. The last tooth still came up a sliver, sharp enough to catch an ankle.

Mothcloak vanished. It doubled back under its own shadow and smoothed the rune face with a brush of its soft wings. The tooth slid down as if it had only been thinking about mischief and decided to nap instead.

Rodion kept the rhythm steady in their ears. The Aeriforms’ plumes trembled, correcting for each pressure change in the lung of the world.

They made the last bend. The lift slowed. The air tasted of old river and stone. The lotus at Mikhailis’s hip picked up a new note, thin and eager, pointing like a compass needle that had suddenly noticed north.

He paused and looked back. Thalatha met his eyes. Her face was set but not hard. He could see the line of pride under the bruise now.

He laughed, soft and a little breathless. "Isn’t this the part where a sensible person says we’re almost out?"

She raised an eyebrow. "We aren’t."

"No," he said, and patted the lotus cradle like a stubborn mule. "We’re just going even deeper and further."