Adventure of Pando 1

Before anyone reaches the concealed stair, a shelf gives a soft wooden crack. A sealed folio drops into the dust, its wax bearing Merrow’s mark.

Davren kneels and opens the folio without breaking its seal. Inside, cramped pages describe a blood-keyed ward beneath the annex and name Pando’s curse as one possible trigger.

A low hum rises beneath the floorboards. Dust trembles around the folio, and faint red lines awaken between the annex stones, tracing a circle under the shelves.

The hum deepens beneath their feet. The red lines pulse once, and the folio’s final page lifts in the draft, revealing a drawn hand pressed against a black seal.

Pando steps to the fallen folio and retrieves it from the dust without disturbing the red-lined circle. He scans the cramped script, Merrow’s seal, and the drawn hand beneath the black mark.

The folio’s instructions become clear: a cursed bearer can awaken the ward, but only through conscious contact. The circle will reveal the hidden passage before it opens, giving the bearer time to withdraw.

The hum steadies beneath the floorboards. The red lines remain bright, but the circle does not widen, leaving the folio’s knowledge in Pando’s hands without forcing the next step.

Pando closes his eyes within the annex, letting the ward’s hum recede behind his breathing. The remembered darkness gathers beneath his awareness.

The floor, folio, and red-lined circle fall away. Dark water rises around Pando, calm and depthless, while faint reflections of the annex tremble across its surface.

Avaris’s faceted core rests beneath the water before him. Its channels remain dim and ordered, and the dream’s quiet clarity settles fully around Pando.

In the annex, Pando remains motionless beside the folio. Tessa watches him cautiously, while the ward continues its steady hum without changing.

The red-black current beneath the dream water gathers into a clear outline of the annex ward. Its circle separates from the black seal, showing the lock and the living pattern it recognizes.

The answer settles without ambiguity: Pando is the necessary kind of key, but the ward still requires his conscious choice. It will not seize his hand or open by accident.

The annex returns around Pando. Tessa remains watchful beside the folio, while the red-lined circle hums steadily and waits for his decision.

The dream outline clarifies the consequence: the ward records the bearer’s pattern as it opens, allowing anything attuned to Merrow’s system to recognize that a curse bearer has entered. The passage itself will remain stable once opened.

A second pattern appears beneath the first: the seal will reveal a concealed side chamber before the main passage, containing the ward’s control stone. Reaching it would let Pando close the passage and erase the active trace.

The annex returns around Pando. Tessa watches beside the folio, while Sister Elian, Brother Oren, and Davren wait near the red-lined circle, their attention fixed on his decision.

Pando releases the dream waters and returns his attention to the annex. The red-lined circle, sealed folio, and waiting figures settle into sharp reality around him.

The ward’s hum remains steady beneath the floorboards. Pando stands beside the folio with his awareness fully present, while the black seal waits untouched inside the glowing circle.

Brother Oren keeps clear of the circle, and Davren steadies the folio against the draft. Tessa remains near Pando, watching the seal without reaching toward it.

Pando reaches through the red-lined circle and presses his hand to the black seal. The ward accepts his curse-pattern, drawing a measured thread of strength before releasing it.

The seal opens without force. Stone folds inward beneath the shelves, revealing a narrow stair descending into a dim passage, while a smaller side chamber glows with the ward’s control stone.

Tessa steps through beside Pando, leaving the others beyond the threshold. Behind them, the ward’s red lines settle into a quiet glow, and the opened stair leads downward into Merrow’s hidden archive.

Pando turns back before descending and places his hand against the opened seal. The red-lined circle contracts beneath his touch, drawing the stone shelves together without a sound.

The black seal reforms across the hidden entrance, its surface settling into unbroken stone. The ward’s glow dims to a guarded thread on the annex floor, leaving the passage concealed behind them.

Tessa turns toward the descending stair and checks the narrow passage below. Dust lies undisturbed on the steps, while a muted glow shines from the side chamber ahead.

Tessa begins down the stairs beside Pando, keeping one hand near the wall without touching it. Above them, the sealed entrance disappears into the dim archive stone.

Pando asks while descending. The stair’s old stonework reveals no matching blood-key pattern around the steps, only the ward’s deliberate recognition of an outside bearer.

Pando compares the folio’s hand-drawn seal with the ward’s structure. The maker’s work is present in the design, but no trace identifies Merrow as its living key.

At the stair’s landing, a faded inscription confirms the distinction: the architect is named as Merrow, while the key is described only as a willing cursed bearer. The answer settles clearly.

The question hangs beneath the landing. Pando’s blood runs cold as the inscription’s distinction sharpens: Merrow did not merely build a lock, but prepared it for a living cursed bearer.

Tessa studies the faded inscription instead of reaching for the walls. Beneath the architect’s name, a second line describes the bearer’s pattern as something to be recognized, recorded, and admitted.

The lower passage waits beyond the landing, its stones cold and dustless. Pando now knows Merrow’s interest was likely the curse itself, even if the old records do not yet reveal his purpose.

Pando lets the uneasy feeling pass without feeding it. He steadies his breathing, keeps his attention on the worn steps, and continues down beside Tessa.

The steps carry them beneath the landing into a narrow archive passage. Dust lies undisturbed along the walls, while a muted amber glow marks a chamber ahead.

Pando reaches the bottom of the stair with Tessa beside him. The passage opens into a low chamber containing a stone table, sealed shelves, and a dark control stone set into the far wall.

The chamber remains quiet and fully accessible. Behind them, the concealed stair stands sealed, while the control stone waits within reach and the hidden archive extends beyond it.

Pando approaches the dark control stone and studies its surface without touching it. Fine grooves form a map of the sealed stair, the passage ward, and a smaller chamber beneath the archive.

His perception follows the angular grooves into three distinct channels. One maintains the hidden entrance, one records the curse-pattern that opened it, and one can close the passage while clearing that record.

A shallow recess beneath the stone holds a smooth socket shaped for a cursed bearer’s palm. It is inactive, waiting for deliberate contact, and its markings show no sign of coercive force.

Pando begins placing his hand into the smooth socket. The recess accepts his palm cleanly, and the control stone wakes beneath his touch without resistance.

The three channels brighten in sequence. The hidden entrance seals, the passage ward falls silent, and the record of Pando’s activation dissolves from the stone’s angular grooves.

A fourth marking appears beneath his hand, revealing a concealed archive alcove beyond the control chamber. Inside rests a dry packet bearing Merrow’s undamaged seal, untouched by the ward’s record.

The socket releases Pando’s hand. The chamber remains stable, the passage sealed behind them, while the newly revealed packet waits in the alcove with its seal intact.

Pando takes the sealed packet from the alcove and opens it cleanly. The undamaged wax yields without disturbing the dry pages inside.

The packet contains a narrow letter, a floor plan, and three copied names. Merrow’s cramped hand identifies the archive as a testing site for cursed bearers, not a prison.

One passage states that the bearer’s response must be observed without coercion. Another marks Archivist Neris as the keeper assigned to record each successful awakening.

The floor plan extends beyond the sealed control chamber, showing a lower observatory beneath the archive. A note beside its stair warns that the records there remain incomplete.

Pando spreads the floor plan across the stone table and studies its angles, annotations, and layered corrections. Tessa remains beside him, watching without interrupting.

His close inspection reveals a second stair omitted from the main drawing, descending behind the observatory wall. A notation in Merrow’s hand marks it as an observation route, not a bearer’s route.

The plan also places Neris’s record chamber between the testing site and the observatory, allowing the archivist to monitor every approach without entering the lower rooms.

Pando folds the plan along its original creases, keeping the omitted stair and the altered annotations concealed from anyone beyond the chamber. The information remains unconfirmed, but the contradiction is now precise.

Tessa studies the folded plan, then traces the omitted stair with one finger. The observatory route will expose Merrow’s hidden purpose, while the testing site may hold the records that explain it.

She refolds the plan, preserving the concealed annotations, and separates the two routes with a decisive crease. Her expression remains wary, but the proposal has settled into a workable division.

Tessa takes the plan’s observatory section while leaving the testing-site markings with Pando. She moves toward the hidden stair, ready to proceed, while the sealed chamber beyond the table awaits his entry.

Tessa disappears toward the concealed observatory stair while Pando follows the testing-site markings through a narrow service passage. The route bends behind sealed shelves and opens directly into the testing site without crossing Neris’s record chamber.

Pando crosses the threshold with Merrow’s folio secured against his side. Dust lies undisturbed across the stone floor, but a row of shallow viewing slots reveals the chamber was designed for observation from outside.

At the center stands a low stone platform encircled by faded red-black grooves. Beside it, a narrow writing desk holds bundled records, each marked with a different date and bearer symbol.

The testing site’s inner door is already unlatched. Beyond it, shelves of copied reports lead toward the record chamber, while a fresh chalk mark points to one bundle labeled with the current season.

Pando reaches the marked bundle without triggering the floor grooves. Its first page lists successful awakenings, failed tests, and one recent entry whose bearer description matches his living curse-pattern.

The entry ends with a direction: consult Archivist Neris before the next activation. The note gives Pando a clear lead through the open inner door and toward the records that explain Merrow’s design.

Pando searches the current-season pages for his name, turning each sheet beneath the desk’s pale light. The entries use bearer symbols instead of personal names, frustrating the search.

He reaches the matching entry, but a stitched binding holds its final page against the bundle. The visible text ends with a cross-reference to Archivist Neris’s private account.

Pando cannot complete the search in the current records. The bundle offers no readable name, and its secured final page remains beyond the information he can extract here.

Beyond the open inner door, the record chamber shelves hold the promised account. The matching symbol gives Pando a precise lead, but the current bundle cannot answer whether Neris recorded his name.

Pando retrieves the current-season bundle from the desk and lays its stitched final page flat beneath the pale light. Thin traces of shadow pass over the parchment, following every groove in the fibers.

The shadow reveals erased lettering beneath the visible ink. A concealed instruction directs the matching bearer to Archivist Neris’s private account, then warns that the bearer must not be surrendered to any authority.

A second layer emerges along the stitched edge: the bearer symbol was copied from an earlier private observation, not assigned by the current-season clerk. Beside it, a mark identifies Neris’s account as sealed behind the record chamber’s inner shelf.

The shadow traces expose a final hidden line beneath the page fold: Merrow ordered Neris to assess whether the bearer could command the curse without coercion, and to conceal any result from the monastery authorities.

The concealed writing fades when Pando withdraws the shadows, leaving the page unchanged to ordinary sight. Neris’s private account is no longer merely a lead; it is the record that holds the hidden assessment and Merrow’s instructions.

Pando retrieves the current-season bundle from the testing-site desk and lays its stitched final page beneath the pale light. He draws thin shadow traces across the parchment, following erased grooves beneath the ink.

The shadows uncover a concealed register beneath the bearer symbol. One faded line names Pando directly, identifying him as the living curse-bearer observed during the current awakening.

A second hidden entry states that Archivist Neris compared Pando’s curse-pattern against Merrow’s original observations and confirmed the match. The note orders the private account kept separate from monastery authority.

The shadow traces reveal a final notation: Pando was not listed as a subject to be confined, but as a bearer whose consent and decisions had to be documented before further testing.

When Pando withdraws the shadows, the lettering vanishes beneath the ordinary ink. His name remains clear in memory, along with the private shelf where Neris’s fuller assessment waits.

Pando retrieves the current-season records bundle from the testing-site desk and carries it to the pale light. Alone in the chamber, he opens the failed-experiment list.

He studies each entry closely, comparing names, dates, bearer symbols, and Merrow’s cramped annotations. The list records failed awakenings before the monastery’s present disturbances.

The familiar name appears beside an older bearer symbol and a notation describing a marked subject whose manifestation remained stable but whose consent ended further testing.

A later line states that the entry was copied from an observation kept outside the public register. The date places it before Pando and Tessa reached the monastery.

At the bottom of the failed-experiment list, a shelf mark directs the reader to Archivist Neris’s private account. The clue is clear enough to follow without bringing Tessa into the chamber.

Pando turns from the failed-experiment list and crosses to the stone platform at the testing site’s center. The faded red-black grooves wait beneath his feet, undisturbed by dust.

He steps into the platform’s center and steadies his breathing. His curse-pattern answers his deliberate will, not the surrounding ward, and the grooves ignite in a controlled ring.

The platform recognizes him as the bearer named in the concealed register. A vertical mark rises from the stone, forming an angular seal that carries his authority through the testing chamber.

The viewing slots open like narrow eyes, revealing hidden writing along the walls. Merrow’s system records Pando as an authorized bearer, granting him access to the failed experiments and private assessments.

A concealed drawer opens beneath the platform, holding Neris’s private account under a fresh seal. Beside it rests a bearer ledger, now marked with Pando’s authority and ready for his examination.

Pando takes Neris’s freshly unsealed account from the drawer and brings it to the platform’s pale light. The pages are dense, carefully cross-referenced, and written in a tight, disciplined hand.

He reads every entry thoroughly, comparing the bearer symbols with the ledger marks. Neris recorded awakenings, consent, manifestations, and the authorities who attempted to claim each bearer afterward.

A detailed section concerns Tessa. Neris describes her mark as stable, her manifestation as responsive, and her refusal of further testing as valid. No authority was granted permission to compel her.

Another section identifies Clerk Merrow as the architect of the testing system, but records disagreement between his instructions and later monastery practice. His design required willing bearers; the archive’s officials increasingly treated consent as an inconvenience.

At the end, Neris names the current danger plainly: someone is altering records to conceal unauthorized experiments and searching for living curse-bearers before they can choose their own guides. The account gives Pando the evidence in full.

Pando folds Neris’s private account along its original creases and stashes it securely with the other records. He returns to the platform’s drawer and retrieves the failed-experiment assessment.

The assessment is thinner than Neris’s account, but its pages are densely marked with dates, bearer symbols, consent records, and clipped conclusions. Pando carries it into the platform’s pale light.

He reads through every entry, matching symbols against the ledger. Several bearers resisted forced activation, while others manifested safely until officials altered the conditions or demanded obedience.

The assessment confirms Tessa’s earlier entry: her mark remained stable, her refusal was recorded as valid, and no authorized test justified taking control from her.

Pando reaches the final page and finds its assessment incomplete. The observations stop immediately before a concealed reference to an unlisted experiment, leaving him with the evidence but a concrete uncertainty about who ordered it.

Pando closes his eyes and gathers his attention inward. The testing site fades beneath dark, depthless water, and the quiet dream surrounds him completely.

Avaris’s faceted core rises before him beneath the surface. Its channels remain ordered, while faint ripples disturb the water around Pando’s awareness.

For one breath, Pando’s sense of self thins into the surrounding dark. He steadies it with deliberate breathing, and the water stops pulling at his awareness.

The dream water stills around Pando. Avaris’s faceted core turns, and older layers of red-black light appear beneath the channels that record the later testing.

Avaris opens a deeper reflection beneath the water. The testing site appears as a later structure built around an already living core, its wards designed to identify and measure what was present.

The answer settles plainly in Pando’s awareness: Avaris predates the experiments, while the testing system was an attempt to study and use the older presence through cursed bearers.

Pando turns inward and searches beyond the testing records, past the curse’s later patterns. The dream water darkens until a smaller figure stands reflected on its surface.

The image sharpens into a quiet room from childhood, its stone floor cold beneath bare feet. The younger figure studies a red-black glimmer gathered in his palm, curious rather than afraid.

The recollection settles completely, giving Pando the child’s posture, the cold floor, and the first deliberate gathering of shadow. Holding it costs him the surrounding years; faces and dates beyond this room slip temporarily out of reach.

Pando presses beyond the recovered childhood room, following the red-black pattern through the missing years. The dream water fills with broken images of stone platforms, bound records, and hands reaching toward his curse.

The fragments join. Pando remembers standing upon the testing platform while Merrow’s ward measured each weapon-form, recording how quickly he obeyed, resisted, reclaimed, and reshaped the blood.

Pando sees the decisive memory: an unseen authority ordered the curse opened again after he had dismissed it. He refused, and the record marked that refusal as instability rather than consent.

Pando follows the childhood memory deeper, past the testing platform and its watching hands. A second figure appears beside him: a thin, ash-haired drow boy in a plain gray tunic, one cheek marked with a small white scar.

The memory sharpens. The ash-haired drow boy watches the observers, then quietly places two fingers against Pando’s wrist after each trial, grounding him before the next command.

Another fragment shows the boy being led through a different door while Pando remains on the platform. His face turns back once, but the surrounding voices blur before naming where he went.

The search succeeds, but the missing years exact a concrete cost: the boy’s presence is clear while the final door, his identity, and the records around him remain indistinct. Holding the memory also displaces the next experiment from reach.

The memory holds the ash-haired drow boy in place, no longer a passing shape among broken years. His scarred cheek and steady fingers remain clear beside Pando’s younger self.

The name settles into the memory without forcing the missing years open. Ilyan’s fingers still touch Pando’s wrist, a quiet signal that the trial is over.

A further fragment gathers around the name: Ilyan standing outside the testing chamber, palm pressed to its door, while distant voices argue beyond him. The memory ends before the door opens.

Pando wakes quickly, the dark water receding as the testing site returns around him. The records remain spread beneath the platform’s pale light, undisturbed and within reach.

Pando gathers the current-season bundle and failed-experiment assessment, comparing bearer symbols, dates, and cross-references with patient precision. He searches beyond the public entries and private account summaries.

A concealed notation appears beneath a faded symbol: Ilyan, a young drow bearer, recorded during the early trials. The entry places him beside Pando before the testing site’s later expansions.

The reference continues into a sealed cross-index, naming the chamber where Ilyan’s observations were stored and noting that his record was removed from the public register after the trials. Pando now has the name and its exact trail.

Pando leaves the testing site and follows the marked passage back toward the sealed control chamber. The hidden stair rises beneath his measured steps, and the records remain secured beneath his cloak.

He reaches the chamber where he and Tessa separated. The dark control stone rests in the wall, its channels quiet, while the observatory stair waits open beyond the table.

Pando checks the sealed passage, the alcove, and the floor plan before settling beside the stone table. Nothing has shifted, and no unfamiliar footsteps disturb the dust.

Tessa steps from the observatory stair with folded pages in hand and joins Pando at the split point. Her expression is alert, and the pages bear fresh charcoal marks.

The two routes and their evidence are together again. The control chamber remains secure, giving Pando and Tessa a clear place to compare Merrow’s concealed design.

Pando looks at Tessa’s marked hand as she lays the observatory notes beside the testing records. The mark is quiet, its lines steady beneath her skin.

The memory connects Tessa’s mark to the old entries: stable, responsive, and never permission for anyone else to command. Her refusal remains part of the record.

Tessa turns her marked hand palm-up between them, inviting examination without offering it to the ward. The charcoal notes wait beside the copied assessments.

The evidence lies open across the stone table: Tessa’s earlier assessment, Neris’s account, and the observatory pages. Their separate discoveries are ready to be matched line by line.

Pando crouches to Tessa’s height beside the stone table, keeping his hands visible and away from the ward. The records remain open between them.

Tessa turns her palm upward and extends the marked hand. Its lines remain quiet and steady, free of the ward’s influence, while she watches Pando’s face.

The cost of Pando’s request settles plainly between them: Tessa grants the examination, but claims a firm voice in every choice involving her mark. The notes wait beside her open palm.

Pando slides his hand beneath Tessa’s open palm without closing around it. He invokes his authority quietly, directing it through the space between their hands rather than forcing it into her mark.

The mark answers with a controlled warmth. Its lines briefly align with Pando’s authority, revealing a second, dormant pattern beneath the visible one, then settle without pain or resistance.

A clear boundary forms between them: Pando can reinforce and interpret the mark while Tessa remains its deciding will. The authority leaves no compulsion behind.

The hidden pattern resolves into a protective channel linked to Tessa’s wing-shape. It can preserve that form against disruption, giving her a safer way to keep the wings stable during future strain.

Pando keeps his hand beneath Tessa’s open palm without tightening his hold. The hidden channel remains visible between them, protective rather than controlling, while the records lie open on the stone table.

Tessa studies the pages, then her own marked hand. The dormant pattern gives a faint, steady warmth, confirming the distinction between preserving her wings and commanding them.

Pando explains the records and the memories beneath them: the childhood darkness, the testing platform, and Ilyan’s steadying hand before the observers separated them.

Tessa listens without interrupting. Her marked hand remains open between them, and the protective pattern keeps its gentle warmth while Pando connects memory to record.

The question leaves space for the missing years without demanding them open. Tessa keeps her palm offered, steady and fully her own, while the notes wait for Pando’s answer.

Pando closes his eyes and follows the remembered pattern backward. The testing room returns in fragments: a stone platform, red-black grooves, watching figures, and Ilyan’s steady hand at his wrist.

The memory clarifies. Merrow’s observers first called the trials instruction, then changed their questions into commands when Pando’s control exceeded their expectations. Ilyan grounded him after each session.

The recollection settles into a complete sequence: observation became attempted ownership, Pando refused, and the records mislabeled that refusal as instability. The missing years remain incomplete, but the testing itself is clear.

Pando follows the memory beyond his refusal. The stone room returns, and the observers exchange alarmed looks while Clerk Merrow closes the record book with deliberate care.

They stopped calling the trials instruction. After Pando refused, they removed the restraints from the platform, brought out measuring rods, and began testing how long his curse would remain dormant.

The memory sharpens further. Merrow ordered the observers to deny Pando rest between trials, then promised access to Ilyan only if Pando demonstrated obedience.

Ilyan’s hand appears at the edge of the platform, fingers curled against the door. He mouths a warning Pando cannot hear, then is led away while the observers prepare another assessment.

Pando follows the memory past the platform and along the stone corridor. The door Ilyan was taken through stands ahead, narrow, iron-banded, and marked with a faded ash sigil.

He reaches the door and places his hand against its cold surface. The remembered corridor settles around him, preserving the threshold without forcing the memory beyond what he can bear.

The ash sigil brightens beneath Pando’s palm, revealing two old grooves: one for the observers’ authority and one for a bearer’s pattern. The second remains faint but intact.

Pando braces his shoulder against the iron-banded door and pushes. The old hinges yield, opening onto a narrow records corridor lit by a single ash-lamp.

Shelves line the passage, their labels faded but legible: observation rooms, bearer assessments, and transfer logs. Dust lies thick except for a clean track leading deeper inside.

The ash sigil dims behind Pando’s hand. Inside the corridor, one shelf bears a newer mark in Neris’s disciplined script, pointing toward transfer records.

Beyond the first shelves, a ledger rests open on a stone stand. Its latest page lists Ilyan’s name beside a destination deeper beneath the archive.

Pando leans over the open ledger and examines every transfer mark, comparing dates, shelf labels, ink pressure, and the clean track through the dust. The entries resolve beneath his careful attention.

The transfer entry names the final destination precisely: the Ashen Vault beneath the lower observatory. It records Ilyan’s movement three nights after the trials, under Merrow’s authority and Neris’s witness.

A second notation gives Pando an unasked-for advantage. The transfer seal includes a bearer mark that will open the observatory’s inner stair without activating the archive alarm.

Tessa bends over the ledger beside him, keeping one finger above the page without touching the ink. The route is clear now: lower observatory, inner stair, then the Ashen Vault below.

Pando surges down the clean records corridor, moving with legendary speed. The ash-lamp flames bend in his wake as the inner stair opens before him.

Tessa keeps pace behind him, gripping the transfer ledger. Pando crosses the inner stair without triggering the bearer seal, and the archive alarm remains silent.

The stair drops beneath the lower observatory into a vaulted passage. At its end, a door of dark ashwood bears Ilyan’s bearer mark and the words Ashen Vault.

Pando reaches the Ashen Vault with Tessa beside him. The sealed door stands intact, but a faint warmth pulses beneath the bearer mark, as though something within has recognized their arrival.

Pando gathers his strength and drives his boot into the Ashen Vault door. The dark ashwood splits around the bearer mark, and the door crashes inward, revealing a chamber lit by a low amber glow.

Inside, a young adult drow man stands beside a stone chair, lean beneath a faded gray tunic. Ash-gray hair falls across one cheek, where a small white scar cuts through his features.

Ilyan grips the chair’s edge but remains standing. Faint bearer lines circle his wrists, dim rather than binding, while shelves of sealed records rise behind him.

Beyond Ilyan, an angular seal glows across the rear wall. Its lines answer the broken door with a faint red pulse, while the vault’s records remain sealed and undisturbed.

Pando stays where he is, keeping his hands visible and away from the glowing seal. Tessa remains beside him, watching Ilyan and the listening walls.

Ilyan releases the chair and gestures toward the angular seal. Its red pulse follows his movement, revealing thin lines connecting the wall to the records and the marks around his wrists.

Pando walks slowly to the left wall, keeping his hands visible. He shifts the records aside, finds the hidden control, and places his palm against its willing-bearer socket.

The control warms beneath Pando’s palm. Its angular channels brighten in sequence, and the rear seal’s red pulse slows to match his curse-pattern without drawing blood or strength.

The bearer lines around Ilyan’s wrists dim from red to gray, then fade into harmless traces. Behind the records, the control opens a narrow compartment containing a sealed instruction tablet and a second key-mark.