JJ fell asleep with her shoulder against Ty’s and one hand tucked under her own ribs. She never crossed farther than that, which mattered more than he wanted to admit.
Ty stayed awake because sleep kept walking up to him wearing the wrong faces. Rui-Chai hanging from black cuffs. Daemon looking at him with the patience of a man given no warning he was about to become a cost. Gerald’s scarf folded into the grief roll.
Blue slept under his collar, warm against his neck.
That was the only reason he stayed still as long as he did.
Outside the storage room, Gate Spur breathed through old vents. People moved in low voices. Metal clicked. Bandages tore. Somewhere farther down the hall, Milo cursed wire coils with the steady commitment of a man turning pain into civic service.
JJ shifted beside him. Her head tipped toward his shoulder, then stopped when the wall caught her weight.
Ty looked at her for a few seconds too long.
She looked younger when she slept. Not softer. Just less defended. That made him uncomfortable in a way attraction never fully explained. He had someone waiting on Earth. He had a war trying to dress itself in prophecy around him. He had no clean place to put the fact that JJ had asked for comfort and trusted him enough to sleep.
He moved carefully, but JJ woke as soon as his shoulder left hers.
Her eyes opened without confusion. Training did that. Fear probably helped.
"I am staying inside the hall for air," he said before she could ask.
She blinked once, then looked toward Blue under his collar. "You are leaving quietly with your witness asleep."
"I need air before this room starts feeling smaller than my ribs."
JJ rubbed one hand over her face. "Stay inside the outer door. Gate Spur still has gaps under the stairs."
"That was almost concern without command attached to it."
"I am improving under terrible conditions, apparently, despite evidence."
Ty stood with one hand on the wall and waited for the dizziness to lose interest. JJ watched him without getting up. That helped more than a hand would have.
"Sleep if you can before the hall wakes again," he said.
"Keep Osalf from cornering you if he follows."
"That sounded like a prediction I should respect."
"It sounded like Osalf preparing to be himself."
Ty left before the conversation turned into something he needed more strength for.
The hall beyond the storage room had shifted into a wounded kind of order. Rosana sat beside Vellor with her knife across her knees and a roll of clean cloth by her boot. Vellor had been propped against the wall, pale and sweating, his bundled wrists held above his lap.
He looked at Ty. "Still alive, if you came to check your charity."
Ty kept walking. "Still annoying, if you came to justify Rosana’s knife."
Rosana’s mouth moved by a fraction. "He asked for water without spitting it back at me."
"Progress worth writing down after this night ends."
"Keep your charity away from making me sound trained," Vellor muttered.
Ty almost answered, then saw the map table.
Osalf stood over it with the scarred Bull, Kern, and two others whose names still sat outside Ty’s reach. The grief roll sat near the door rather than on the table now. Someone had tied it shut with the bead cord.
Kern had one arm in a sling and the face of a man determined to complain before death stole the chance. "Every road out of here bites hard enough."
Osalf moved a piece of broken tile along the map. "Then we choose the bite that leaves the most body."
"That better become less poetic before dawn arrives."
"North road has patrol teeth. East road has informants. Old drainage road has cave-ins and rail sickness."
The scarred Bull tapped the last route. "Drainage road, then, if soldiers stay north tonight."
Kern stared at him. "You heard the part about cave-ins clearly."
"I also heard fewer soldiers waiting there tonight."
Ty stopped near the table. "What is rail sickness when it reaches bodies?"
Milo appeared from behind a crate with a coil over one shoulder. "Your organs remember moving at different speeds and begin voting separately."
"That sounded medical enough to be fake, Milo."
"I have suffered many educational things against my will."
Osalf looked at Ty. "Ruptured cells. Old rail routes strain bodies at small levels. Most people recover with rest, water, and less complaining than Milo."
Milo pointed at him. "My complaining is preventative medicine for everybody nearby."
Ty flexed his burned hands. The skin pulled tight. "So the drainage road might make injured people worse."
"Yes, and pretending otherwise wastes our time tonight," Osalf said. "The north road lets Threxian make us prisoners faster."
That ended the obvious argument for everyone listening.
Ty looked down at the route marked with cracked blue ink. "Where does it go if nobody collapses first?"
"A stronghold two days out if nobody collapses. A buried maintenance village if they do."
Kern leaned back from the map. "That sentence is why morale avoids you tonight."
Osalf ignored him. "We move before first light reaches the stair."
Ty glanced at Vellor. "He comes with us after all this trouble?"
Rosana answered. "He rides tied to a stretcher if he loses consciousness. He walks if he wants dignity."
Vellor’s eyes narrowed. "You have strange mercy for people you hate."
"You have no hands and too much mouth," Rosana said. "We are both adapting under unpleasant conditions tonight."
The table went quiet enough for Ty to hear the monitor casing tick as it cooled.
Osalf rolled the map. "Get what rest you can before orders change."
The order scattered people into motion, but Osalf stayed where he was. Ty knew JJ had been right before the man even spoke.
"Standing outside alone tonight makes you easier to collect."
Ty looked at him. "That sounds like concern wearing a cheap coat."
"It is risk assessment with better manners attached."
"That coat fits better on your shoulders anyway."
Osalf’s eyes moved to the storage room door, then back. "You want Earth. You said it after the broadcast."
Ty’s jaw tightened. "Everyone keeps repeating my life like that makes it public property."
"If Threxian keeps the arena, you will never reach it."
"You know nothing about Earth or my home."
"I know what kings do with doors they cannot own."
The answer stopped him more than he liked.
Osalf continued, quieter. "If the Goddess gave you a way across worlds, Threxian will search for it through you, through the coin, through anyone who remembers seeing you use power he cannot catalogue."
Ty looked toward the storage room and counted the sleeping people without meaning to.
Blue slept there. JJ sat there with too many secrets. Vellor breathed under Rosana’s knife. Every person in the hall had become part of a net Threxian might pull because Ty wanted a door home.
"That is supposed to make me help you."
"It is supposed to make you understand why going home has enemies."
Ty laughed once without humor. "You killed Daemon and now you are giving travel advice."
Osalf accepted the hit without moving. "Daemon would have told you anger chooses roads badly."
Ty stepped closer before he decided to. "Keep his voice out of your mouth forever."
The scarred Bull looked over from the far wall, but Rosana gave him a small shake of her head.
Osalf held Ty’s stare. "Then use your own. Choose what keeps your people breathing until you have better choices."
"My people, according to your latest claim tonight."
"You keep collecting them while claiming you are alone."
Ty hated that sentence enough to remember it.
Far away from Gate Spur, Threxian’s prison chamber had no vents and no old rail stink.
It had clean stone, polished enough to reflect firelight. Omina stood beside a narrow table covered with instruments arranged by size. She wore gloves. That bothered Rui-Chai more than the instruments at first. Gloves meant procedure. Procedure meant nobody in the room had to pretend this was anger.
Rui-Chai hung from black sea stone cuffs with his toes barely touching the floor.
His burned hand had swollen around the knuckles. His shoulder had been forced back into place badly enough that every breath pulled against it. The side wound under his ribs had been packed to keep him alive, not comfortable.
Threxian stood before him in repaired armor that hid the fresh damage.
"Your followers have run into old tunnels tonight," the king said.
Rui-Chai lifted his head enough to look at him through hair and dried blood. "Then your roads failed before mine did again."
Omina made a note on a slate without looking up.
Threxian smiled only with his eyes. "Gate Spur damages bodies. Ruptures small vessels. Weakens cell walls under repeated transit. It is a poor shelter for wounded rebels."
"You sound very worried about our health, king."
"I am measuring how long before they become easier to collect."
Rui-Chai swallowed. The motion dragged pain through his throat. "You will need better collectors than that soon."
Threxian looked to Omina and gave the smallest permission.
She picked up a rod with a black sea stone core and touched it to the cuff, not to Rui-Chai’s skin. The cuff carried the force inward.
Rui-Chai’s body arched hard enough to drag the chains tight.
His teeth closed before the sound could leave.
Pain went down to the marrow and stayed there, not sharp, not hot, just total. The magic inside him tried to move away from the stone and found nowhere to go. Tiny breaks opened under his skin. Blood spotted his forearms in small dark points.
Omina withdrew the rod after three counted breaths.
Rui-Chai sagged against the chains after the count ended.
Threxian stepped close enough that only Rui-Chai could hear the first part. "Where will Osalf take the demon after this."
Rui-Chai drew air through his nose. "Osalf hates when kings call him predictable early."
The rod touched the cuff again before he finished breathing.
This time Rui-Chai made a sound before he caught it.
Omina’s face remained still, but her hand tightened on the rod. Rui-Chai saw it because he watched hands for a living.
Threxian saw him see it and enjoyed the small proof.
"Search my general for mercy and waste time," the king said.
Rui-Chai looked at Omina anyway. "I was searching for boredom behind her eyes."
Omina lowered the rod. "He is conserving speech by making each answer provoke another strike."
Threxian glanced at her. "Then strike until conservation fails in his throat."
Back under Gate Spur, the arena contestants had their own table and a worse meal.
The arena contestants occupied a different prison from the Black Bulls. Threxian’s handlers had moved them after the broadcast into a fortified lodging house attached to the arena district. The windows were shuttered from the outside. Guards stood close enough to hear plates scrape.
That failed to stop Kern’s old rival Yagrid from talking.
"Anyone else thinking the tournament prize keeps getting uglier every hour?"
Alexander sat with both arms folded, his untouched bowl cooling in front of him. "Prizes always look different after bodies hit the floor."
Meilin pushed a piece of bread around her plate. "Do you think Ty is alive out there?"
Kern sat elsewhere, and too many contestants were scattered now for clean counting. Marcus answered because silence made him itch. "If he is, he is probably making someone regret rescuing him."
Jui-Lao’s fingers rested around a cup. "He has a talent for surviving in ways that annoy authority."
Fernando leaned forward into the gap. His face had the right amount of grief on it, which made Meilin soften before he spoke.
"The king took my family too, for nothing," Fernando said. "People like Ty and the rebels think they own pain because theirs is loud."
Alexander looked at him. "Pain belongs to nobody at this table alone."
Fernando’s smile bent at the edge. "Easy for a giant to say after surviving."
"Harder, actually. People assume we feel less when weapons work poorly."
The table quieted around the shape of that answer.
Meilin looked between them, unsure whose wound she had stepped near.
Fernando leaned back. "My wish stays simple. Justice for my family."
Jui-Lao watched him over the cup. "Justice usually names the guilty before it eats."
"Mine will name them when the wish opens."
The guards by the wall shifted. The contestants heard it and returned to their bowls. The arena had taught them when conversation became evidence.
At Gate Spur, Ty found the outer stairwell and stopped where cold air leaked through a broken seam.
The seam gave him air without giving him sky.
Osalf had followed him with predictable timing and quiet steps.
Ty looked at the strip of dark between stones. "You always hover after ruining a room, Osalf."
"I prefer to hear what people say after anger runs out of easy words."
"Mine has more teeth when necessary, unfortunately for you."
"I assumed that much from your face already."
Ty closed his burned hands slowly and let the pain keep him honest. "If I help, I choose how. I am not Vishu because Rui-Chai needs a banner. I am not your replacement weapon because Daemon died. I am not Threxian’s diseased subject because he said it into a camera."
Osalf listened without interruption or rescue this time.
Ty turned from the seam. "And if the path home opens, I decide whether I take it. Not you. Not JJ. Not a dead prophecy."
"Agreed, with the witness problem attached to it."
Ty studied him in the pause, looking for the hook.
Osalf gave him one because restraint lost the argument. "But every choice has witnesses now, including this one."
Ty walked past him toward the storage room. "Then tell the witnesses to sleep while they can."
Behind him, the old rail line clicked deep under the floor, damaged cells cooling in the dark.