The bracer tried to cook Ren’s arm.
Gold fire raced from his wrist to his elbow. The cracked crystal flashed once, twice, then screamed in a pitch only his bones seemed able to hear.
Elara grabbed for the clasp.
"Take it off."
"Working on that."
"It is glowing through your sleeve."
"I noticed the part where I caught fire."
Ren touched the bronze with two fingers.
The hall vanished beneath a flood of understanding.
WAYWARDEN’S CUFF
Tier: Unstable
Condition: Critical
Bond: None
Function: Holdfast — inaccessible
A ghostly image unfolded over the bracer. Corroded wire glowed red along the inner rim. A shattered pin flickered beside the crystal. Lines connected damage to consequence with brutal clarity.
Incomplete grounding.
Unfocused discharge.
Probable nerve injury.
Ren swallowed.
"Good news," he said. "It isn’t dead."
Nia leaned against the nearest table while blood dripped from her sleeve. "And the bad news?"
"It has strong opinions about my nervous system."
Elara’s face could have sharpened knives.
"What does it need?"
"Copper braid. A focus pin. Something to keep the crystal seated." Ren looked around the ruined hall. "And permission."
Elara blinked. "Permission?"
"You said this belongs to the hall."
"People are trapped."
"Exactly. I don’t want our first rescue beginning with me stealing emergency equipment from you."
For one heartbeat, only the storm answered.
Then Elara pointed toward a narrow iron cabinet behind the request desk.
"As acting steward of the Crossroads Adventurer Station, I authorize emergency use of its stored Artifact."
Ren nodded. "Thank you."
Nia’s ears tipped forward.
"Oh, I like him."
"You like anyone who says thank you while bleeding," Elara said.
"That is because standards have collapsed."
Elara guided Nia into a chair and cut open the courier’s sleeve. Three red furrows crossed her upper shoulder. Ugly, but the bleeding slowed under pressure.
Ren ran to the request bell.
The rope disappeared into a cracked wooden box near the ceiling. He dragged over a chair, climbed, and pried the cover loose with his multitool. Green corrosion covered most of the copper winding inside.
"You carry burglary tools," Elara called.
"It’s a screwdriver."
"It has a knife."
"It contains multitudes."
A laugh escaped Nia before she hissed at Elara tightening the bandage.
Ren stripped the cleanest length of copper, twisted it into a thin braid, and jumped down. The old bell sagged overhead with its remaining dignity visibly reduced.
"What are bramblebacks?" he asked.
"Dungeonborn pack hunters," Nia said. Her playful tone thinned. "Low bodies. Fast legs. Moss armor along the spine. They rush from cover, hook a target, then drag it where the others can tear safely."
"How far to the wagon?"
"Twelve minutes if we run. Eight if you enjoy broken ankles."
"Victims?"
"Jessa Thorn, four workers, her son, and Mella Reed’s little girl."
"Known injuries?"
"I saw one man standing. One under the wagon. The irrigation house still had people inside when I drew the pack away."
"Number of creatures?"
"Five juveniles. Maybe six." Nia’s tail struck the chair leg. "And something bigger moving deeper in the rows."
Ren crouched beside the emergency cabinet. Elara tossed him a ring of keys without looking away from Nia’s wound.
"The square iron one."
He unlocked it.
Inside waited a compact field kit, two cracked signal flares, a coil of rope, a dented lantern, and an empty weapon rack.
There was also a small brass case stamped with the same winged-road emblem as the Cuff.
Ren opened it.
Spare clasps. Resin gone hard with age. Three needles. One brass alignment rod.
The Restoration Map inside his head shifted.
"Close enough."
He braced the rod against the floor and worked it with the file on his multitool. Metal rasped. His fingers slipped twice because the Cuff kept pulsing heat through his hand.
Elara watched him between knots.
"You still haven’t explained how you entered a locked room."
"I opened a basement door during a blackout."
"And?"
"And your storeroom was inconsiderately attached to the other side."
Nia looked between them. "You fell out of another world directly into Elara’s private storage?"
"It is not private storage."
"Very bold courtship either way."
Elara pulled the final knot hard enough to make Nia’s ears flatten.
Ren hid a smile and pushed the shaped pin into the bracer.
The crystal settled.
He threaded copper through the damaged inner channel, twisted the ends together, then used a strip cut from the emergency kit’s leather lining to hold everything in place.
It looked terrible.
The impossible understanding in his head approved.
Temporary restoration viable.
"Everyone stand back," Ren said.
Nia stood and immediately stepped closer.
"That is the opposite."
"I’m injured. Perhaps I’m confused."
"You were flirting during medical treatment."
"I contain multitudes."
Elara stared at both of them. "If this explodes, I am leaving you here."
"Fair." Ren closed his hand over the Cuff. "How do I turn it on?"
"Artifacts require a Bond," Elara said. "Your Record should—"
The answer appeared before she finished.
Compatible Artifact detected.
Open Vault slots: 7
Accept Bond?
Ren thought yes.
The Cuff clamped down.
Every muscle in his arm seized. His knee hit the floor. Gold lines drove beneath his skin like molten wire, circling his wrist before sinking toward bone.
Someone caught his shoulder.
Someone else gripped his hand.
"Breathe," Elara ordered.
Nia crouched on his other side. "Preferably before you become less pretty."
Ren dragged air into his lungs.
The pressure snapped.
The bronze bracer broke into drifting sparks and vanished.
For one horrifying second, he thought he had destroyed it.
Then his Record changed.
Vault: 1/7
Waywarden’s Cuff — Bonded
Ren focused on the name.
Bronze and black light flowed over his forearm. The Cuff reformed with its ugly temporary wiring tucked beneath the plates.
Nia whistled.
Elara released his shoulder more slowly than necessary.
"Manifestation," she murmured. "First attempt."
"Was that unusual?"
"Annoyingly."
She rolled his soaked sleeve above the bracer. A thin gold mark circled his wrist where the Bond had settled. Her fingers traced beside it, checking for swelling.
Warm skin. Ink-stained fingertips. Half a second too long.
Elara noticed at the same moment he did.
She withdrew and stood.
Nia’s grin became unbearable.
"Not one word," Elara said.
"I have several, actually."
Elara crossed to the request desk, opened the largest ledger, and blew dust from a blank page.
The last dated entry sat nearly three years above it.
Her pen hovered.
"Client?"
"Jessa Thorn," Nia said.
"Request?"
"Rescue and creature suppression. South orchard irrigation road."
"Payment?"
Nia’s expression tightened. "Whatever she has left after the rain."
Elara wrote for several seconds.
"Payment deferred pending recovery."
Ren glanced at the empty hall. "Can you do that?"
"I just did."
She signed beneath the entry with one hard stroke.
The dead request board behind her clicked.
A single tarnished brass marker slid down its track and stopped beneath the word ACTIVE.
Elara stared at it.
So did Nia.
Ren picked up the emergency rope. "What?"
"That board hasn’t moved in years," Elara said.
"Then it needed exercise."
Elara shut the ledger and tucked it under one arm.
"You are not going alone."
Ren looked at her practical shoes, key ring, and complete absence of armor. "You fight?"
"I know every irrigation channel between here and the south farms, the client trusts me, and you do not know which end of Asterfall points south."
"All compelling."
Nia drew a short curved blade from beneath her coat with her uninjured arm. "I scout. Elara keeps us from getting lost in a straight line. You carry the ancient rescue Artifact you repaired with stolen bell guts."
"Authorized bell guts."
"Then we are practically professionals."
They ran into the storm.
Asterfall blurred past in wet stone, shuttered shops, and yellow windows. Nia led them through the broken eastern gate, fast despite her bound shoulder. Elara kept pace with the ledger wrapped beneath her vest.
The town road narrowed between dark orchards.
Branches whipped in the wind. Fallen fruit burst beneath their boots. Somewhere ahead, a packbeast screamed once and went silent.
Nia stopped so suddenly Ren nearly hit her.
She crouched beside the road.
Mud had been churned around a snapped harness and an overturned handcart. A long groove led away between the trees.
Not wheel tracks.
A body-shaped drag mark.
Nia touched two fingers to the mud, then raised them to her nose.
"Fresh."
A branch cracked inside the orchard.
Not low among the roots.
High enough to brush a man’s shoulder.
Something large moved between the rows, and the trees moved with it.