Chương 123: 113. Estía

Keep the work plain. A shrine must look like a shrine, a well like a well. The instrument that matters must never resemble the thing that matters, or a stronger hand will come to take it, and break it learning what it was. — Codex of the Long Watch, Founding Tenet Eleni wrenched her daughter's chin towards the oil lamp to inspect the dark smear of blood across her jaw, her voice a steady, rhythmic torrent of scolding that didn't pause for breath. The blood wasn't Sarah's.

Most of it had sprayed from a Council boy's torn thigh, but that fact meant nothing to the woman forcing her face into the harsh yellow light. The sharp words spilling out of Eleni weren't actually about the blood. They were about the hour, which was hours past the promise they had made, and the sudden, suffocating danger surrounding the four people she had fed that morning. Arthur stood just inside the door with the shield still on his back, taking up more of the room than he wanted to.

Donna had put herself against the wall by the window where she could see the yard, out of habit, her wrapped forearm held a little away from her side. Steve sat rigid on a low wooden chair, pulling his shoulders in to make his frame as small and inconspicuous as possible.

"You said before dark," Eleni said. She let go of Sarah's chin only to grab her by the shoulders, holding her out at arm's length to inspect the rest of her clothes for hidden tears.

"You said before dark, and I set the table for before dark. Then the dark came, and I sat in it. Po po po. Look at you. Whose is this?"

"The blood isn't mine, Mamá," Sarah said, offering a patient, exhausted smile.

"It belongs to a boy from the market. He is alive, Mána, and that is exactly why we were late. So you can be angry about the hour, or you can be glad about the boy, but you cannot have both."

"I will have both," Eleni snapped, her grip tightening on Sarah's shoulders one last time before she finally let her go.

"I am your mother. I am allowed both." Petros came in from the yard with his sleeves pushed up and took the scene in at a glance, and grinned like a man who had been waiting all evening for this specific mess to land.

"Ela, the wanderers," he said, tossing his work rag onto a side table.

"The whole city is talking. Four foreigners walking straight into the wolves at the container yard, and my sister who is now a miracle maker. Re, Sarah." He dropped onto the wooden bench across from Steve, leaning his forearms on the table.

"You know what they say down at the harbour? They say the big one lifted a whole wolf over his head and threw it. I told them, no, that is not him, I know the man. But nobody listens to me. And here he is." He pointed his chin at Arthur.

"The wolf-lifter."

"I didn't lift anything over my head," Arthur muttered, looking thoroughly uncomfortable as he shifted his bulk near the doorframe.

"He's either exaggerating for effect or he started the rumours himself," Sarah said, casting a sharp, pointed look across the table at her brother. Petros turned to the rest of the table, looking deeply satisfied with himself.

"Look at him. He makes the duck again. Three months in Greece, and still he makes the duck." Eleni cut off any further bickering by shooing the four of them towards the stairs, refusing to let them sit near a plate until they had scrubbed the road off their skin. They returned a few minutes later with wet hair, the worst of the stench and grey dust finally sluiced down the drain.

She set a massive ceramic dish down in the centre of the wooden table with a heavy thud, making it perfectly clear that the meal should have been eaten hours ago while it was hot. It was kakavia, a thick fish stew simmered long with golden olive oil, soft potatoes and sweet onions. Eleni stood over the table like a sentry, watching their hands. Only when they had finished their first bowls and reached for a second did the hard lines of her face soften a little.

A fed guest was a claimed guest, and she had four of them to pull back from the dark.

"Eat," she commanded, nudging the bread basket closer.

"All of you. You are too thin. You look like the war." Nobody argued. They ate quickly and deeply, none of them willing to give Eleni a reason to find her anger again. Once the bowls were empty and the table was cleared, Sarah leaned across the corner towards Donna.

"Give me the arm."

"It can wait," Donna said.

"It waited in the yard because we had thirty seconds and a panicked crowd," Sarah said, pulling her chair closer.

"It isn't waiting now. Give me the arm, Donna, before my mother looks over here and convinces herself that she did not raise me right." Donna let out a brief breath and extended her left forearm across the wood. Sarah unwound the wrapping and laid her fingers along the four claw lines. The light came up under her hands, warm and even.

"On a scale of one to last rites, it is a two. It would be fine by the morning."

"Told you, I have had worse," Donna said. Sarah shifted her hands to Donna's side, pressing the cool current directly against the bruised ribs. Donna's chest hitched for a second, and then her breathing eased as the internal resistance vanished under the hands of the Mender.

"Arthur, your turn," Sarah said, moving over to him.

"If you don't get that bicep looked at, you won't be lifting any more wolves." Across the table Petros had stopped eating to watch the light move under his sister's hands, watching the torn flesh knit back together. Eleni watched from the stove with her arms folded and a slight smile on her face. Once the mending was done, the talk turned to the numbers. The protocol remained. You allocate somewhere with a wall at your back, a roof over you and people who would catch you if you went down.

The four of them moved out into the cool air of the courtyard while the rest of the family headed upstairs to bed. Arthur went first, and made it look like nothing. He pulled up the menu, put one point into Strength, one into Dexterity, one into Constitution, and confirmed it, and the restructuring rolled through him in a thirty-second wave he had felt a dozen times, connective tissue tightening, the small heat of a frame adjusting. He rolled his neck once when it passed and that was all.

ARTHUR ASHWORTH — L21: STR 34 | DEX 16 | CON 32 | ACU 10 | RES 10"That is the most boring allocation I have ever witnessed," Steve said.

"It kept a wolf off six men tonight." Arthur put the menu away.

"Boring works." Donna was the next to allocate.

"Hitting the CON threshold," she warned. She put one point into Strength and one into Constitution. The attributes came in their waves and passed.

"Doing it now. Arthur, I better not hit the ground." she said, adding the last point into Constitution. ATTRIBUTE THRESHOLD: CON 25 DONNA CALLAS — L21: STR 21 | DEX 36 | CON 25 | ACU 10 | RES 10 The restructuring hit Donna next. She went rigid on the wooden bench, her jaw locking tight as the tendons in her neck stood out like wire. Arthur moved a step closer in case she did end up toppling over. She didn't. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Her entire frame remained clamped, her muscles knotted as she stared unblinkingly at the blank stone wall. It took about three minutes for the systemic allocation to run its course. When her frame finally settled, she gave the group a single, sharp nod. She flexed her fingers, rose to her feet and whipped Ravener through the dark courtyard air in one decisive arc. The blade cut a clean hiss through the night.

The movement remained exactly as rapid as it had been that morning, without a hint of sluggish drag or unnecessary mass warping her frame.

"Good. It didn't slow me down," she murmured, half to herself, checking the balance of the haft.

"I had no desire to turn into a second lumbering Arthur."

"Oi, that's a bit harsh," Arthur said, feigning a wounded look.

"I do not lumber." She drove a fist into her open palm to test the impact, then flexed her grip again.

"It did toughen the frame, though. Not to your structural density, but I can feel the change in the joints." Sarah stepped in, laying a palm against Donna's shoulder and closing her eyes to trace the internal changes.

"Yes. Your internal organs feel reinforced, and the same goes for the major tendons and connective tissue." She reached out her other hand, resting it briefly against Arthur's massive forearm.

"It's a different structural logic, though. Arthur feels like what I imagine the inside of a silverback gorilla feels like. You are built more like a panther."

"A gorilla?" Arthur grumbled.

"You're taking the piss now. Why is everyone suddenly having a go at me?"

"I meant it affectionately," Sarah said, stepping back as Donna snorted a laugh into the dark. • • It was Steve next, and the moment he had been waiting for since Sounion. His first real opportunity to see what a closed circuit would actually do for his casting throughput.

"Well, Dr Parr, don't keep us waiting," Arthur said. Steve put two points in Acuity first and waited for the allocation to roll through him.

"Best to get the mundane upgrades out of the way," he muttered by way of explanation. He took a deep, stabilising breath, then committed his final point into Dexterity, closing the circuit. The moment the allocation locked, his Nadi-Matrix erupted. Watching the process happen to Arthur and Donna hadn't prepared him for the sheer voltage of going through it himself. The lattice ignited across his entire frame. A sudden surge of violet-blue current flared down both arms and shot through the pathways of his legs.

The surge pulsed once before grounding out and dimming back into his skin. CLOSED NADI MATRIX CIRCUIT ACHIEVED STEVE PARR — L21: STR 10 | DEX 10 | CON 15 | ACU 42 | RES 25 Steve sat with his palms flat on his knees, waiting for his motor control to return. His fingers twitched against his trousers.

"Well," he said, his voice still slightly unsteady.

"Hello."

"Test it," Sarah said.

"Just avoid burning the house down." Steve raised his focus rod, targeting the far stone wall. He released a thin lance of flame, a standard projection he had cast a hundred times before. The fire hissed across the courtyard and spent its energy harmlessly against the masonry. Then he engaged the closed circuit, drawing inward. Ambient Ether flooded his system, a dense, cool weight that caused the violet lattice beneath his flesh to brighten. Before the charge could dissipate, he threw the exact same lance.

The second discharge snapped from the rod a fraction faster than he anticipated. The beam was significantly tighter. Steve walked across the flagstones to examine the impact zone. The first strike had left a wide, superficial soot smear. The second hit was much smaller, a concentrated point that had bored a tiny, clean hole directly into the stone.

"The throughput didn't change, but the concentration did," Steve said, tracing the scorch mark.

"Faster off the mark, higher density." He let out a sharp laugh and looked back at Donna.

"It is the exact same change as yours. Control, not raw power." Correct, Archie's clinical voice echoed in their minds. The Conduit framework resolves ambient suffusion into channelling precision. Your total output remains unchanged. Your mechanical placement and response timing have simply been optimised. For this stage.

"For this stage," Steve repeated, looking up at the empty air.

"You keep using that qualifier. Archie, if you aren't going to give us the full picture, stop being a tease." I have never teased, nor do I intend to cultivate such inefficient behavioural patterns in the future, Archie countered. All units would be wise to practise drawing in ambient energy instead of over-analysing the interface parameters.

"The one-second operational window it grants us feels incredibly flimsy," Arthur observed, adjusting his stance against the wall. For now. They waited for the system interface to expand on the diagnostic data, but the text remained static. No further information followed. • • Sarah took her turn last.

"One point to close the circuit," she said, her eyes fixed on the blue light of the interface.

"Two more to bring Acuity to twenty-five. I am doing both at once." She looked directly at Steve.

"How bad was the transition to twenty-five Acuity? Give me the truth."

"Three minutes," Steve said, attempting a casual shrug that didn't quite hide his sympathy.

"The room came in a lot louder before it came in clearer. But you are stacking two upgrades simultaneously. It is going to be worse than mine." Sarah didn't hesitate. She committed the choices, allocating two points into Acuity and her final point into Dexterity. CLOSED NADI MATRIX CIRCUIT ACHIEVED ATTRIBUTE THRESHOLD: ACU 25 SARAH VASSILOU — L20: STR 10 | DEX 10 | CON 25 | ACU 25 | RES 26 The physical closing of the circuit hit her first.

The violet lattice flared violently beneath her skin in a sudden, sharp rush of current. Before that initial wave could peak, the second restructuring surged right beneath it, the Acuity threshold aggressively rewriting the sensory inputs her Matrix was built to handle. The two calibrations tore through her nervous system at the same time. Her spine arched tight, her fingers clawing hard into the rough wood of the bench. A deep, burning flush travelled up her throat and flooded across her face.

For a long, agonising moment, her lungs locked completely and she could not draw breath. Then the internal voltage snapped and settled. Sarah slumped forward, her chest heaving as she sucked in the cool night air. She dug the heels of her hands hard into her eye sockets.

"Panagía mou," she rasped, her voice muffled against her palms.

"You undersold that, Steve." She lifted her head slowly. For a few seconds, she could not identify what had changed. She scanned the internal pathways of her Nadi-Matrix, but the underlying changes eluded her understanding.

"Well?" Steve asked, casually twirling a pencil between his fingers.

"I have no idea," Sarah admitted.

"I know something is different, but I have no idea what." She looked up into the dark air.

"Archie, some help here." Stay where you are and attempt to reach for an injury, Archie instructed. Sarah looked across the stone flags at the jagged, mostly sealed cut on Arthur's bicep. She focused her intent and mentally reached across the gap. A warm, violet light pooled at the tips of her fingers, detached itself from her skin and leapt through the open air to settle onto Arthur's arm. Sarah flinched backward in surprise, and Arthur jumped slightly as the energy made contact.

The thin, luminous thread connecting them dissolved after a second, but the violet glow remained anchored to Arthur's flesh, continuing to knit the remaining tissue.

"Ranged heal!" Steve shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

"Finally, a proper ranged heal!" Sarah stared blankly at her open palm.

"It's from me," she whispered, her voice tinged with shock.

"The healing. It came from me." She looked skyward.

"What is the cost? There is always a cost." The projected current is thinner, Archie replied clinically. You can reach approximately three metres and sustain two patients simultaneously. However, both targets will mend at a significantly slower rate than during direct, tactile contact. It is a longer tool, not a stronger one.

"Three metres?" Steve scoffed, his tabletop instincts kicking in.

"That's disappointing. A level one Healing Word has a sixty-foot range." Healing Word also restores 1D4 plus spellcasting modifier, Archie countered dryly. In this reality, that is the equivalent of patching a minor rat bite. Adjust your tactical expectations accordingly. Steve pulled a face but kept his mouth shut.

"What about the closed circuit?" Sarah asked, shifting the focus away from the numbers. Draw in the ambient energy and trigger a localised heal, Archie said. The functional realisation will follow. Sarah looked down at the back of her left hand, at a shallow scrape from a container edge that she must have caught back in the market yard without noticing. She pulled inward, drawing the ambient Ether through her skin until the lattice showed, then directed the cold energy straight into the tiny tear.

The scrape vanished in an instant, and it closed perfectly. Every single thread of Ether laid itself exactly where the cellular tissue demanded it, leaving completely unblemished skin behind. She stared at her hand for nearly a minute before speaking.

"One second," she breathed.

"One absolutely flawless second. It is entirely useless for setting a shattered femur, but a perfect second of healing for a patient about to cross the threshold..." She stood up, her fingers tracing the healed scrape.

"It is the one shot at precise stabilisation before you lose them. I always had good hands. I have never had a perfect second."

"Right, so now we all have closed circuits," Donna said after the silence stretched out.

"Time to start figuring out how we are going to cross twenty seven kilometres of open sea."