Chapter 590: Rumi’s Fourth Wing

Rumi heard the lintel fall behind her, the sound striking between her shoulders while the lowest mouth came skidding up the witness service stair.

She turned too quickly.

Its edge caught her sleeve, tearing cloth beside the dyed thread before she threw herself toward the clear paving outside the rubble.

"Nari!"

Hajin was already at the fallen arch, one hand raised toward the surviving vent as a muffled answer reached him through the dust.

Rumi heard her sister’s voice.

Then the high mouth struck the wall beside her head.

’Deal with these.’

She dropped to one knee, putting her palm against sound paving while the three predators curved around the cleared approach.

Behind them, the hall watch held people above the service stairs, the first rescued bundle of plates resting safely beyond the barrier.

Rumi pointed at the empty recess below it.

"Nobody down there."

"Clear," the keeper shouted.

The low mouth lunged again.

She opened her single route between the stone beneath her hand and the recess she had physically marked, the amber aperture catching the predator’s approach while she rolled aside.

It followed the moving space she had just occupied.

Its mouth crossed into the empty landing, pulling a narrow dark conduit taut through the fold behind it.

Rumi waited until the feeding edge had passed the far collar.

Then she closed the aperture around the exposed conduit.

The cut made a sharp, wet sound without leaving blood, the mouth collapsing inside the empty recess as its severed connection snapped back toward the archive wall.

Ash drifted across the landing.

The keeper stayed behind the barrier, his lamp shaking in one hand.

"One," Rumi said, finding her feet before the eastern predator reached the paving beside her.

Her first fold was gone.

She touched a second sound patch farther from the falling arch, using the new departure point to open her one route toward the eastern service recess.

The memory of that floor came clearly, the brushed stone below the wooden door, the solid wall keeping the landing apart from the shelter’s occupied rooms.

Its keeper rang the clear signal when Rumi called through.

"Stay above the door."

She showed the approaching mouth her back, letting it commit to the turn before flattening herself against the ordinary wall beside the opening.

Its edge brushed her hair.

Rumi smelled hot dust as it went through, the dark conduit stretching behind it in a curve that almost reached her wrist.

She caught the aperture’s moving margin, keeping the closure on the hostile connection while its feeding mouth crossed into the empty recess.

The route snapped shut.

From beyond the closed fold came the eastern keeper’s ordinary chime, followed by the faint scrape of ash falling against stone.

Rumi’s fingers cramped.

She shook them once before the last predator struck the paving where her hand had been.

"Impatient bastard."

The northern mouth pulled itself wide, its edges rasping together as it followed the direction of her feet rather than her face.

Rumi let it see her stumble.

The stumble was mostly real.

Her calves had begun shaking from the corridor runs, the small stores of warmth she had saved for getting home already spent on closing the first two routes.

She hit the wall with her shoulder, using the impact to stop herself before touching the third departure patch.

The northern recess waited at the other end of the single fold, clear of the repair crews and their occupied supports.

"North landing?"

The answer chime came at once.

Rumi opened the route low enough that the mouth had to narrow to follow her offered heel, its attacking edges drawing together as she stepped sideways along the wall.

It tried to turn after her.

She widened the far opening instead, giving its committed movement a destination beneath the northern stairs while the empty landing keeper shouted everyone back from the top.

The predator’s body passed through.

Its dark conduit hooked toward Rumi’s wrist.

She drew her hand clear before closing the aperture, the rim severing the stretched connection against the destination seam she had prepared.

The northern mouth dissolved in a scatter of inert ash.

Rumi landed on both knees.

For a moment all she could hear was her own breathing, the ache in her hands making it difficult to straighten her fingers against the floor.

Three ordinary chimes answered from the cleared destinations.

The family plates stayed where their bearers had put them.

Rumi lifted her head toward the fallen arch, relief catching on the dust still hanging where Nari had stood.

Light opened behind her before she could rise.

[ Rumi Hostile Route Experience: 2,000,000 ]

[ Rumi Wing Progress: 7,500,000 / 7,500,000 ]

The threshold filled completely, a bright, impossible instant of satisfaction cutting through the pain in her legs.

"Finally."

[ Wing 4: Unlocked ]

[ Rumi Wing Progress: 0 / 37,500,000 ]

[ Ability Unlocked: Many Roads ]

Four amber Wings spread behind her, their light reaching over the broken stones while sharp lynx-ear shadows rose along the wall.

Rumi stared at them reflected in the polished edge of a fallen brace.

Her grin arrived without permission.

"Look at that."

Hajin turned from the rubble, his face changing when he saw the fourth Wing.

"I see it."

Rumi shifted one shoulder, watching the fourth amber plane answer beside the other three instead of fading when she stopped concentrating on its edge.

The light caught the dyed thread at her wrist.

She turned her hand beneath it, laughing once at how badly her fingers shook beside something that looked so splendid.

"You could sound more impressed."

"I’m trying to find a word that won’t make you unbearable."

"Too late."

The keeper above the witness recess let out a breath that was nearly a laugh, setting his shaking lamp on the barrier before wiping both palms against his clothes.

Rumi looked toward him, remembering the plates on the bench behind his back.

"Your landing?"

"Ash and your chalk marks," he said, "nothing else moving."

She nodded, the confirmation settling somewhere beneath the bright satisfaction in her chest.

The ordinary nail pressed through the cloth where she had secured it, an awkward little point making her adjust the bundle against her hip.

Bread, thread, a crooked nail, four Wings.

She would have enjoyed showing that collection to Nari with both of them safely out of this miserable hole.

A worker called for a fresh brace beside the fallen doorway, the ordinary shout pulling Rumi’s attention away from the collection at her hip.

"Did she answer again?"

"She’s behind the inner ledge," Hajin said, coming close enough to offer his forearm as Rumi tried to stand, "two seams pinned, we’re clearing the upper fall by hand."

She took the support, putting weight on her feet before releasing him.

The fourth Wing moved with her.

Her knees still hurt.

Rumi looked down at the new ability beside the empty progress bar, reading its shape while the sound of careful stone clearing continued behind Hajin.

[ Many Roads: Up to Three Prepared, Physically Touched Routes ]

[ Mass Transit: One Route at a Time ]

[ Unexplored Endpoints: Unavailable ]

She touched the sound departure paving again, drawing the three known destination lines into a held arrangement for the first time.

Witness recess, eastern recess, northern recess.

Each remained where her own hands had marked it, the three prepared routes staying present while she kept every carrying aperture closed.

The strain settled differently across her shoulders.

"Three," she said, letting the word out slowly.

Hajin crouched beside the nearest line.

"Can any two take a body together?"

"No."

She opened the witness route only after its keeper confirmed the landing empty, sending a loose piece of her broken chalk through before closing its carrying aperture.

The other two remained prepared and quiet.

"One carries," she said, watching the keeper lift the chalk with an incredulous look, "I don’t have to throw the other two away while it does."

"Very considerate of you."

Rumi’s grin returned briefly, exhausted enough that she could feel it pulling at her cheeks.

Hajin shared her completed reward and the ability rows once she had finished reading them, the Stream’s sudden excitement crowding the edge of the public view.

[ ashley: FOUR ]

[ route_runner: she got every mouth away from the families first ]

Rumi glanced toward the ruined entrance before lowering the display out of her direct sight.

"Later."

Hajin brought up a different set of rows beside the active public view, confirming a routine supply purchase while she checked the three held routes again.

[ Wallet before: 39,935 credits ]

[ Purchase: 1,000 credits ]

[ Staple-food packs: 20 at 25 credits ]

[ Dressings: 10 at 20 credits ]

[ Wash/comfort kits: 10 at 30 credits ]

[ Wallet after: 38,935 credits ]

The supplies entered their shared inventory, the receipt shrinking as a worker called for help lifting a loose block from the upper fall.

Rumi moved toward the blocked seam, keeping the three known routes prepared behind her while she knelt beside the scar where the old inner endpoint had been.

She pressed her palm against the stone.

The first touch gave her rubble, the next a broken edge that no longer answered like the place she had once reached.

A single chime sounded through the solid rock.

Nari.

Rumi bowed her head until her forehead almost touched her hand, the four amber Wings lighting the dust around her shoulders.

"I have the roads," she said into the surviving vent, "hold on, I’m here."