CHAPTER 667: HANDS THAT PUSH BACK (4)

"I am a professional," he whispered. "Professionally vibrating."

Her mouth twitched. "Coach."

"Yes, Captain."

He almost saluted her with his tea and barely stopped himself from throwing the whole cup into the air like a drink to a god. Focus, he told himself, amused. No throwing sacred tea.

The nave sounded different now. Less screaming without voices. More work. The cohort moved like a good kitchen during a lunch rush—everyone in their lane, speaking only when needed, tools put back where they belong.

Mikhailis pinned the left prime’s pattern in his head. You keep trying to cut on the two and the five. We are taking away your five. You hate the three. Good. Let’s eat the three.

He lifted his hand, small tilt of fingers to cue a shift that the Scurabons could read from the corner of their eyes. They drifted half a pace clockwise. Hypnoveils took a breath and let their mantles fall a half-inch. The light in the nave dimmed like a cloud moved across a sun that wasn’t there.

The liches wanted to flood the floor with more echoes, but their casting circles were sealed or misfiring. The only clean ground they had left was close to their own ribs. That meant any newborn would spawn in knife range of Scurabon blades. That meant choice. Press anyway, or hold and hope.

The right prime pressed. It tried to throw its arm wide and got tangled for one clumsy second in a Tanglebeetle’s gray line strung knee-height. The line snapped, but the beat was lost. The Scurabons marked the wrist again. The Hypnoveils flashed the small truth of "you missed," and a crack showed in the lich’s calm.

Mikhailis’s grin went feral around the edges. He was about to say something too pleased when the Aeriform plumes bit into a high, fast whine. New pressure. Side vent, sharp angle.

Rodion’s optic flared.

Side vent left. Two seconds.

"Slimeweave!" Mikhailis barked, and he pointed before the word finished. The glossy crew was already there. Gel kissed the stone; the spit slid off like rain on wax.

A brittle echo raced along the edge of the nave, trying to flank. Tanglebeetles spat a blue thread across its path. The echo hit it, legs caught. The blue line stretched, then rebounded like a yo-yo string, yanking the echo back into the space where Silk Guards liked to throw cones.

Mikhailis whooped, too loud, then clapped a hand over his mouth and tried to look dignified.

Thalatha shook her head but her eyes were bright. She flicked her fingers—two taps, "again"—and the Tanglebeetles answered with a double-click that sounded suspiciously proud.

The floor looked almost under control. Almost. Which was when the left prime tried something mean. It split a shard and instead of sending the newborn toward the cones, it sent it up, high, hoping to drop it behind the cohort.

Mothcloak folded its wings and rose like a shadow waking up. It met the newborn mid-air, brushed once, and the baby lost shape like smoke whipped by a hand. It fell into the waiting arms of a net like it had planned it that way.

Mikhailis couldn’t help it. He laughed. Not loud. Pure. Look at that timing. Look at it. How do I not cheer? How?

Rodion’s tea spout bumped his elbow.

Hydration.

"Fine," he muttered, grinning into the cup. He drank and made a face and drank again.

A hiss crawled under the noise. The right prime ground its wrist bones together and forced a split through a blurred shard. The newborn came out crooked and quick. It skittered between two cones and flashed a knife-hand at Crymber Ember’s ankle. Ember hopped, actually hopped, with a short annoyed hiss. Frost smacked the newborn across the mouth without looking, like an older sibling enforcing table rules. The newborn spun into a line and tangled.

Mikhailis lifted his head, eyes scanning the whole, not just the pretty little wins. The liches were still making pressure. The floor was still full. They could do this for hours if allowed, and hours meant mistakes. They needed to turn the field, not just survive it.

His mind flashed through options. Burn phylactery cores? Too risky—he wanted the bodies later, and Thalatha’s limit held. Crush crowns? Possible, but sloppy and loud. Force their timing harder? Yes. Control the lanes.

He spotted the pattern of staggered splits—left then right then left—always out of sync by half a beat to slip the nets. If he could force them into the same beat, the cones could harvest them like wheat.

He snapped his fingers once, not showy, just to mark his own thought. "Tangles," Mikhailis called, voice low but carrying. "Blue-only lines. Yo-yo them into the cones!"

Echoes tumbled forward like brittle crabs, legs catching the blue lines and snapping back into the Crymber cone range. The motion had a rhythm—stretch, catch, recoil—almost comical if the things hadn’t been trying to claw their faces off. Frost hissed in a tight cone, a white breath that rimed ribs. Ember chased it with a clean, dry whistle. Cracks webbed the frozen lattice. The echoes shattered, each break a soft glass-bell chime that scattered dust instead of blood. The wave slowed, lost its swagger, began to look like a mistake the dungeon couldn’t take back.

On the right flank, Mothcloak simply wasn’t there—no sound, no shadow—until it was. It reappeared behind the prime lich like a crease in the air unfolding. One gentle stroke of its feathered pinion kissed the glyphs etched across the orbiting shard. The symbols smeared, not erased, but softened, as if someone exhaled on frost. The lich tried to split the shard anyway—pride or habit—but the cut caught on that tiny burr. A baby echo wriggled half into the world and failed, its shape dissolving with a sigh that might have been relief.

"Beautiful," Mikhailis breathed, unable to stop himself. He remembered his tea at the worst possible moment, took a heroic sip, and hissed as the heat bit his tongue. "Ow. Worth it." Every time, he scolded himself, amused. Every time you forget it’s hot.

The Scurabons took the hint from Mothcloak’s interference and widened their circle into a precise pinwheel, blades ticking a four-point pattern at knees, wrists, hips, elbows. Tap—tap—tap—tap. Each contact forced the liches’ casting gestures into a narrower corridor. Their splits, previously staggered, began to line up against their will.

Hypnoveils watched with a predator’s patience. They chose the exact beat the pattern synced and flashed a brief, sharp truth: an echo birth that fizzled, the soft collapse of rib and light. It lasted less than a blink, but the image was new, recent, undeniable. The liches hesitated. Their crowns dimmed a fraction—as if embarrassed to try the same trick twice.

"Crymber, through the funnel," Mikhailis said, voice low and fast. He flicked fingers and the Silk Guards tightened their nets, leaving a narrow lane. "Alternate. Ice then ember."

The Twins obeyed like a metronome. Frost poured in a pure line, turning the air milky. Ember followed with that slim, exact note that made Thalatha think briefly of a kettle singing before battle. Burr-stuck shards cracked under the double pulse. Scurabons slid through the same lane and severed wrist seams while Tanglebeetles yanked nets tight at exactly the moment bones wanted to flex. Slimeweave flowed in the wake, painting neat, invisible seals across the chalked ground glyphs so the next spell had nowhere to stand.

The recursion collapsed the way a tower falls when you pull the middle pins first. First the newborns faltered. Then the mid-borns folded. The floor cleared in an almost polite sweep, as if someone wiped a chalkboard. The prime liches flickered; their phylacteries sank into a duller orbit. Both dropped their hands, shoulders angling in—a defensive shape that spoke of calculation more than fear. Hungry, yes. But contained.

Thalatha realized, a little startled, that her arrow hand hung loose at her side. She had never nocked a string. The thought was so strange she flexed her fingers just to be sure they still worked. Behind her, Rodion hadn’t fired a single beam. Mikhailis stood three steps back, whispering like a boy at an arena who’s trying—and failing—not to shout. It would have been ridiculous if it hadn’t been so... endearing. She did not use that word. Not even in her head.

Mikhailis took another sip and coughed into the cup as his tongue protested again. He pretended it was a plan. Hydrate morale. That’s a thing, he told himself with a straight face that fooled nobody.

The liches hovered ragged and regal all at once. The shards orbiting their ribs spun slower, each a dim planet in a dying sky. Their attention swept the cohort, not like a beast seeking prey, but like winter considering a door it might choose not to enter. Old. Watchful. Interested.

Mikhailis caught Thalatha’s eye and lifted his chin a fraction. "I want to try something," he said. His voice lost the theater. This was the lab voice, the collar-off, hands-steady voice.

She straightened as if the floor itself called parade rest. "Limits first."

"Only Blight-made," he said immediately. "No named shelves. If there’s a living will, we stop the second we feel it." He breathed once, let the exhale steady his mouth. "I want the Riftborne to parley, not purge. Bind them to rules instead of break them."