CHAPTER 1436: STORY 1436: ASH IN THE VEINS

Mira limped beside Elena, the pain in her ankle a steady pulse that matched the echo of the plaza’s pounding. It wasn’t swelling—not like an injury should—but it felt wrong, as though the cold from that thing’s grip had rooted itself in her blood.

They turned into a narrow service alley, its walls slick with condensation. Elena pressed her back against the bricks, scanning the street they’d left. “We keep moving,” she whispered. “Find high ground before—”

Mira stumbled, catching herself on a rusted drainpipe. “Before what?”

Elena didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed fixed on the shadows.

A thin line of smoke curled from the stones beneath Mira’s foot. She jerked back, and saw that where her boot sole touched, the surface had blackened slightly, as if kissed by heat. Yet she still felt that glacial cold in her bones.

“Elena... something’s happening.”

“Not now.” The older woman’s voice was tight. “We need distance between us and that bridge.”

But the smoke was getting thicker. Mira could feel it creeping up her leg, like a thread winding higher. She clutched at her calf, nails scraping through damp fabric, and felt her skin—dry, brittle, like paper about to tear.

The voice came again, softer this time.

You carry the seed. The root will drink.

Mira staggered. Elena grabbed her shoulders. “Hey—look at me. Stay here.”

Her vision blurred, and for a moment the alley wasn’t the alley. The walls were replaced by pale growths—tubular, pulsing, threading into a ceiling of bone. The ground beneath her feet was a slick, black surface that moved under her weight.

Something watched her from the far end of that other-place corridor. Not the spindly thing from the bridge, not exactly—but related. Taller. It bent forward in a slow, deliberate motion, and where its face should have been was a knot of twisting roots.

“Mira!” Elena’s voice snapped her back. The alley was real again. Her breath steamed in the chill.

“You were gone,” Elena said, her eyes searching her face. “Just... gone.”

“I saw... something. And it knows I—” Mira cut herself off. The pounding had stopped.

The silence that followed was worse.

Elena slowly drew the knife from her belt. “That means it’s close.”

They reached the end of the alley and emerged into an open courtyard. A fountain sat in the center, long dry, its basin cracked. On the far side, an arched doorway led into a darkened building—possible shelter.

They were halfway across when Mira’s ankle locked. Not from pain—from command. Her body refused to move.

From the archway, pale fingers curled around the stone. Not reeling her in this time—inviting.

The voice filled her skull, no longer layered, but clear, intimate.

The gate is under your skin.

Elena reached for her, but the courtyard seemed to lengthen between them. The dry fountain gaped wider, deeper, its center collapsing inward into a spiraling dark.

And Mira’s balance tipped.