Chapter 23: Grid B
The Reaches greeted them with the same unfinished feeling as before.
Smooth wrong walls. Cold Veil strands hanging in the air like static you could see. The ruined station cavern ahead, its shadows deeper than they should be.
But something had changed.
The pressure was steadier.
Like the corridor had calmed after its hunger was removed.
Kairo felt it immediately. The fragment pressed warm-cold against his sternum, not pulling hard, just… listening.
Brant didn't notice. He strode forward like a man returning to a place he'd conquered.
"Tunnel grid B!" he announced, loud enough for officials to hear even though officials weren't inside the gate with them. "Keep tight. Don't get lost."
The loud fighter chuckled. "We won't. We got the guide."
Kairo kept his face blank.
Selene stayed close, eyes tracking the air more than the walls. Her Silence sense read the Reaches like it was a room full of people: pressure points, blind spots, places where attention would stick.
Varrik walked behind them, quiet, her presence oddly stabilizing in this place. Like she'd been here before and refused to be impressed.
They reached the station cavern and followed the painted grid markers that had been slapped onto the stone by someone trying to impose bureaucracy on chaos.
B-1.
B-2.
B-3.
At B-4, the first sign appeared that the follow-up sweep wasn't just busywork.
A dead team marker.
A small stake with a tag attached, official-style. Clean, numbered.
The medic's face went pale. "They died here?"
Brant swallowed. "Probably first wave."
The tech checked his scanner. "Residue's… weird. Like a pull signature, but broken."
Kairo's thread tightened.
He didn't let it flare.
But he felt it.
A faint echo of Astral pressure, like a star had been here and moved on.
Selene's hand brushed Kairo's sleeve again, light and steady.
Breathe.
Kairo obeyed.
Varrik stopped by the stake and crouched, scanning the ground. Her eyes narrowed. "No blood."
Brant frowned. "Then how'd they die."
Varrik stood slowly. "They didn't bleed. They were drained."
The loud fighter scoffed, trying to sound brave. "Like a beast ate them."
Varrik's gaze turned colder. "Beasts don't eat like that."
Silence dropped into the tunnel.
Even Brant didn't have a joke ready.
They pushed forward.
At B-6, Kairo's Astral sense twitched. Not a path. A wrongness. Like the air had a faint "tilt" to it.
He slowed.
Brant turned sharply. "What. Keep moving."
Kairo didn't argue. He pointed to the left wall, where the Veil strands hung a little thicker, trembling faintly.
"Something's off," Kairo said.
Brant rolled his eyes. "Everything's off. It's the Reaches."
Selene's voice was quiet. "He means specific."
Brant glanced at her, annoyed, but then looked at the wall again and hesitated. Even he could see the strands shaking like something was breathing behind them.
The tech lifted his scanner. It chirped once, then showed a brief spike.
"Door," the tech whispered. "There's a pocket seam."
Brant's eyes lit up. "Loot."
Varrik's voice cut through, flat. "Trap."
Brant's grin faltered. "How do you know."
Varrik didn't look at him. She looked at Kairo.
"Pathmaker," she said. "Do you feel a pull."
Kairo swallowed.
Yes.
Not from his fragment.
From the seam itself.
Like folded space recognizing a cousin.
A hidden pocket corridor.
A small door inside Grid B that officials had either missed or chosen not to acknowledge.
Kairo forced his voice calm. "It's there."
Brant grinned again. "Then we found something. That's why they sent us."
Selene's eyes narrowed. "Or that's why they didn't send a real team. So if it kills us, it's cheap."
Brant's smile tightened. "Shut up."
Kairo kept his breathing steady. The fragment at his sternum stayed quiet, but his thread wanted to reach toward the seam.
The pull wasn't hungry.
It was… familiar.
Like a route that wanted to be walked.
Varrik stepped closer to the wall seam and tapped it lightly with two fingers.
"Pocket doors don't show up without reason," she said. "Either they lead to resources… or they lead to the thing that killed the first wave."
The medic swallowed. "We shouldn't."
Brant's eyes flicked around, then locked on Kairo. "Guide. Can you tell which."
Kairo stared at the trembling Veil strands.
He couldn't see into it.
But he could read the shape of it.
The seam wasn't jagged like a tear.
It was smooth.
Deliberate.
Made.
Which meant someone built it.
Or something did.
Kairo exhaled slowly. "It's stable."
Brant grinned. "See?"
Varrik's gaze sharpened. "Stable doesn't mean safe."
Selene stepped closer to Kairo, voice barely audible. "If it's a door, someone will use it. If not us, then the next team."
Kairo's thread tightened. He understood.
Ignoring it didn't make it disappear. It just meant someone else would claim whatever was behind it.
Brant licked his lips. "We go in. Quick look. Quick grab. Then we report."
The loud fighter nodded eagerly. The tech looked nervous but curious. The medic looked like he wanted to faint.
Varrik looked at Kairo one last time.
This wasn't a command.
It was a question.
Do you want to stay boring… or do you want to steer the danger?
Kairo made the only choice a Pathmaker could.
He chose direction.
"Five seconds," Kairo said calmly. "We peek. If it feels wrong, we leave."
Brant slapped his shoulder like they were friends. "That's my guide."
Selene didn't smile.
She touched her collarbone once, briefly.
The jade token under her shirt, half a crest, cool against her skin.
Grounding.
Then she stepped closer to Kairo's side.
Quiet.
Elegant.
Dangerous.
Varrik nodded once. "Do it clean."
Kairo inhaled.
Held.
Exhaled.
"North," he whispered.
And the seam in the wall answered like a door remembering it had hinges.