She cleared all the relay nodes with ease.

  During her earlier scouting, she hadn’t dared touch them. Unsure if destroying even one might trigger defenses or seal the building entirely. But now, the nodes did nothing more than blink weakly and hiss as they died.

  Her personally marked map made the job easier. She already knew where to step, where not to. Every path calculated, every shortcut traced. It was a clean sweep, each node on every floor, erased without a hitch.

  Now she only had to babysit the Verdict Wing.

  Fane greeted her at the third-floor rendezvous. She tried making small talk at first, but quickly gave up when Writ responded with nothing but nods, headshakes, or silence. But Fane could only take so much quiet.

  Eventually, she tried again, “Junior’s nerves are probably slowing them down.”

  Writ glanced at her. Approval, as far as Fane could tell.

  “He’s capable. Actually faster than us at laying the glyph network, but... he shakes. Always does, especially when it matters.”

  “He won’t last, then,” Writ replied.

  Won’t last as in dead. Whether discarded by the Accord, or left in pieces on a mission gone wrong.

  “Cold,” Fane muttered, stretching out her shoulders, “but I guess that’s just how Harbingers are. Detached, practical. You never really have to work in teams.”

  Writ said nothing.

  “He only got out of the Treshfold four months ago,” Fane added, “was assigned to the seedwake project right after. Learned it faster than we did, and we’re demolition specialists. Their framework’s completely different, but he adapted. Even gave feedback on the prototype, stabilized it. This version wouldn’t exist without him.”

  Writ scanned their surroundings again for the hundredth time, “why not Glyphfire, then?”

  “He’s hopeless at theory-to-application. He knows what makes something better, but not why. Tried to learn, but couldn’t manage it.”

  Writ nodded. Silence returned and held its weight.

  She was about to suggest sweeping the second floor in case something had happened, maybe an ambush, when the rest of the team finally appeared.

  “Sorry for the wait. Did we take too long?” Reck called out, raising a hand.

  “You really took your time. Was the boy talk that good?” Fane replied, smirking.

  “I-I’m so sorry,” Junior stammered, visibly shaking.

  Writ studied him for a beat too long.

  It was too familiar. The trembling. The fear. The way the air around him felt like hesitation incarnate.

  Like someone she’d once known. And things hadn’t gone well for that person. It bothered her, more than she had any right to let it.

  “Nerves won’t do you any favors in the field,” she said quietly, “it’s one of the reasons they’ll find your body in pieces.”

  Silence fell, thick and immediate.

  Only after a beat did Writ realize she’d said it out loud.

  “That’s too harsh,” Fane said, frowning.

  No one else spoke. The pause stretched, thick as tar, unwilling to move.

  “Let’s just sweep the third floor,” Reck said after a while.

  Fane nodded and nudged Junior ahead.

  Writ closed her eyes for a moment before following them.

  Inhale. Hold.

  It had passed.

  Exhale. Hold.

  She shut it back down.

  Inhale. Hold.

  She was walking on her own now.

  Exhale. Hold.

  No longer the trembling child she used to be.

  "You're doing good, Junior. Don't worry!" Fane gave his back a quick pat.

  They only had three more placements to go. Fane and Reck had let Junior handle every seedwake pod on the third floor so far, always positioning themselves between him and Writ. A shield, or a wall.

  Writ didn’t mind. She shouldn’t have said what she did, true as it was, but she knew they understood that too. So she didn’t apologize.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Instead, she compensated the only way she knew how: by monitoring their surroundings more thoroughly. Every draft, every shift in dust, every fluctuation in silence.

  She had to admit, Junior’s glyphwork was solid when his hands weren’t shaking, and she noticed the tremble faded when she kept her distance.

  So she did just that. Trailed them from afar. Watched, but didn’t hover. It worked. So far.

  But that distance ended when they reached the heart of the third floor.

  Reck pushed open the door to a wide hall. Half-empty bookshelves lined the full height of the walls. In the center, quiet and inert, pulsed the memory trap. And far ahead, across the chamber, lay the too-short hallway, the one that didn’t match the map.

  The final three placements were all in this room: one tucked in the southeast, one in the southwest, and the last, most inconveniently, just north of center. Right between the memory trap and the unnatural corridor.

  While the Verdict Wing moved to place the first two, Writ crouched and marked the trap's threshold with salt.

  "What are you doing, Writ?" Reck asked, glancing over as she traced the careful arc.

  "Marking," she said simply. "Don’t cross this line if you want your consciousness to stay with your body."

  He studied it, brow creasing. “That close to the last spot? Risky.”

  "Exactly why I asked you to move it.”

  Fane only shrugged.

  They shifted toward the final placement. Writ moved with them now, blades loose in her grip, senses stretched taut. The room felt different than when she’d scouted it alone. The pressure was wrong. Like it was... waiting.

  Junior fumbled in his satchel, pulling out the last pod. His fingers were trembling again.

  Writ spared a glance, “let Fane or Reck plant the last one,” she said, already returning her focus to the northern hall, “too dangerous.”

  “O-okay...” Junior mumbled, extending the pod toward his teammates.

  But Fane pushed it back, “actually, no. Let him do it. It’s the last one, he deserves the credit.”

  “It’s not about credit,” Writ snapped.

  “Come on, let loose for a second. Do you have something stuck up your ass or what?”

  Reck caught her by the arm before she could get closer. Writ’s jaw tightened.

  “No time for this,” she said sharply, scanning the walls, the floor, the ceiling. “Reck. You do it.”

  “Alright. Fane, calm down. Writ’s right, it’s not the time,” his grip on her didn’t loosen, though Fane twisted against his hold, all bristling fury and no restraint. He wasn’t holding her back for Writ’s sake. He was holding her back for hers.

  “Oh, and now you’re on her side?” Fane hissed.

  Writ almost rolled her eyes. Almost.

  Junior still stood in the middle of it all, hands trembling around the pod. Writ hadn’t known human fingers could shake that much without falling apart. This was taking too long, and it was far too loud.

  She could end it with a word. A sharp command. A correction. But Fane was already bristling. Reck was restraining her. Junior was shaking in the center of it all. If she stepped in now, it would fracture the team further.

  So she didn’t.

  She said nothing else, just widened the net of her senses, brushing against every trace of mana, every sliver of intent. Searching. Hoping not to find anything.

  Fane was still bickering, and Reck still held her steady, when Writ saw something she hadn’t on her previous run.

  Black glitter.

  It trailed faintly along the floor, from the entrance they’d come through, all the way to the far hallway. Masked by dust and shadow. Unmistakably fresh.

  She stilled. Her eyes locked onto the hallway.

  She checked again, for leyline disturbances, mana disruption, active glyphs. But there was nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  As if the corridor didn’t exist. As if there should’ve only been a wall. As if what she saw now was an illusion or a painted door.

  “How much longer?” she asked without looking.

  “Just a little more,” Reck replied, “he’ll make it soon.”

  Writ blocked out Fane’s voice entirely now. Let her complain. Let her bark and snarl.

  Then it happened.

  The pod slipped from Junior’s hand. The seal cracked mid-air.

  Fane was too caught in her argument. Reck was still restraining her. No one noticed fast enough.

  Writ moved to intercept, but she was too far, and a heartbeat too late.

  The pod struck the ground. It split with a soft pop, barely louder than a breath, and then the world moved.

  First came the roots. Fine as hair at the tips, thickening as they spread, they burst from the shattered shell and darted out in all directions with frightening speed. They didn’t slither, they lunged. Lattices of green and brown tore across the stone floor, climbing over boots and bags and limbs alike, anchoring and expanding with each pulse.

  Then came the bark. Not the slow curl of growth, but a violent bloom, plates of ridged, fibrous wood erupting like armor where the roots struck surface, splintering stone with a sound like ribs breaking under pressure. A defensive sprawl. It cracked across the floor like a web of dry lightning, splitting tiles, toppling shelves, forcing them all back in a surge of living matter.

  The air turned heavy with scent, earth and sap and something sharper beneath it. Unnatural.

  Thorns curled from the larger roots as they thickened, sharp and instinctive, stabbing into the nearby walls and locking in place. Vines coiled after them, weaving upward toward the ceiling, shedding dust and pulling broken shelf beams into their reach.

  It was chaos in slow motion. Like watching a room drown in forest.

  Writ tried to brace, but a root struck her ankle and sent her reeling. She didn’t fall, but the force drove her across the line.

  Salt scattered underfoot. The carefully marked threshold, gone in an instant.

  The trap pulsed.

  No flash. No sound.

  Just a tug, sharp and cold, beneath her thoughts. Like the floor dropped out behind her eyes.

  She caught herself with a sharp intake of breath, re-centering, blinking twice hard to stay present.

  To her left, Reck hit the ground with a grunt. Fane crashed into a pile of vines, shouting something too distorted to make out. Junior yelped, flailing as the roots tripped him.

  The seedwake wasn’t supposed to spread this fast. Not in prototype specs. Not even in Glyphfire’s worst-case predictions.

  But the pod hadn’t been planted. It had been dropped and unsealed. Uncontrolled growth. Wild and reactive.

  Writ surged forward, blades out now, not to cut, not yet, but to clear line of sight, to stabilize the trap.

  But the trap surged faster.

  Something cracked in the air. Not sound. Not light. Just something.

  Then everything went white.

  Not the bright kind. Not the sterile hum of hospital lights, nor the sear of a spell miscast. Just absence.

  The world vanished in a single breath, sight, sound, weight. Gone. Not darkness, darkness had depth. This had nothing. No ground beneath her feet, no breath in her lungs, no self to hold.

  Writ floated. Or maybe she fell. It was impossible to tell. There was no time here. No direction.

  No Writ. Not Shadow Accord, not Harbinger, not anything. Just a name she couldn’t find the shape of.

  For one terrifying second, she couldn’t remember what she was. Couldn’t remember her purpose, her orders, her hands, her voice.

  Only the tug remained. Gentle, soft. Like something was calling her into sleep, or into forgetting.

  A memory trap didn’t take your life. It just severed the thread between you and your body. Left you behind like shed skin, locked somewhere unreachable. Harmless, Quiet.

  If you were lucky.

  And Writ had never been lucky.

  But somewhere in the nothing, something pulled. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just... deliberate.