Chapter 945 - 945: Nana Sends The Staff And Keeps The Weight

Nana found Todd's staff when it struck her metal knee from between the sixth and seventh steps.

The capsule section had been forced crosswise through two pieces of Griswald's wooden stair. One tread came from a palace service flight. The other still carried yellow paint and a child's mud print near the wall.

Todd's boot had split the painted edge. A fresh groove crossed the staff where a metal jaw had tried to close around it.

Three dark drops marked the lower tread. Nana touched one with her living hand. The blood had dried at the rim and remained soft beneath it.

Todd had gone through with an injured person and left the staff holding the route open behind them.

With her cut red climbing line looped around the capsule section and the brass marker pointing below, Nana drew the staff half an inch from the wood.

Griswald's entire stair leaned toward the judgment gate.

Far above, timber scraped across stone. Tiral Voss shouted a brace count. Twelve boots answered from the work pit, followed by General Mattison ordering the west crew behind the white mortar line.

A thinner voice broke across Tiral's next count.

"The west foot has my sleeve and split thumb under it, and I cannot clear either while everyone keeps chasing the brace toward the door."

Nana remembered the youngest mason hiding that thumb inside his sleeve before he drove a wedge beneath her boot. The moving blade had pinned the same cloth beneath the west timber.

She pushed the staff back between the treads. The stair returned part of the stolen floor, giving Mattison enough room to reach the trapped worker.

"Cut his sleeve above the wrist and keep the timber off the injured hand."

After Mattison answered with two chisel strikes, cloth tore above them and the youngest mason counted all five fingers before Tiral resumed the brace order.

The petrified Cross Link Blade had taken Nana's pull through the service door.

The stair settled, but the east timber still lacked a hand of floor.

Mattison's voice reached Nana through the mismatched walls.

"West brace moved one hand, and the blade is taking your door with it."

Nana put her shoulder under the painted tread.

"Keep twelve names behind the mortar line while I move the weight somewhere else."

Tiral answered before Mattison could repeat the order.

"My crew cannot hold another turn without dropping the east timber."

"Then stop holding the turn after I give it another place to sit."

The brass marker kept pointing below the trapped staff. Todd's route remained open by less than the width of Nana's wrist. She could follow if she pulled the section free and let the wooden stair take whatever stood behind her.

That would include twelve workers, their six months of pay, and the blade they had voted to stop testing.

Nana unwound the red line from her waist. She tied it twice around Todd's staff and pushed the brass marker beneath the knot, one long cut and six shorter ones facing outward.

The knot matched the one Mattison had added before she crossed the service door. Nana tightened it until the cut fibers stopped slipping.

"The staff goes forward while my weight stays under your stair."

Mattison struck the upper wall twice with his chisel.

"Your metal hand cannot guide the section and carry the west tread together."

"It can do both badly for long enough."

Nana pressed her red palm against the painted tread. Metal spread from her fingers into the wood grain. Her index and middle fingers flattened into a narrow guide around Todd's staff while the remaining fingers widened beneath the step.

The route pulled.

Her palm stretched until the joint lines disappeared. Heat gathered beneath the wrist cuff and forced her living shoulder lower. With the tread held above the guide, Nana eased the staff out another inch until the route caught the brass marker and drew Todd's section through her flattened fingers. The lower knot stopped at the gap.

Above her, Tiral called the east timber level again.

The stair still needed somewhere to put the blade's next pull.

Iron struck the wall beside Nana's head.

A coffin runner pushed through a door joint that had carried no step before. Its curved end entered first, followed by a strip of black cloth pinned beneath severed red wire.

The wire carried four small barbs and a piece of trouser thread. Somebody had cut it away from an ankle without cleaning the evidence from the knot.

Writing moved under the black cloth.

Nana recognized the first backward curve of Ty's old vessel contract. The mark tried to copy itself onto the wooden wall, then stopped where the wire locked the cloth against the runner.

Whoever carried the iron had bound the authority shut.

The severed wire crossed a narrow sword guard groove before circling the cloth. Its four barbs faced away from the contract, positioned to punish any hand that unwrapped the lock. Nana kept her living fingers on the bare curve of the runner and let the closed bundle scrape past her metal wrist.

Behind the cloth, the contract pulled once toward Todd's lower route and once toward the east wall. The two directions shared Ty's mark and disagreed about who could spend it.

The runner pulled east. The petrified blade pulled west. Nana put her red wrist between them and felt both directions enter the metal hand.

"A coffin rail has reached the side wall, and it can carry your blade weight away from the crew."

Mattison's answer came through the stair.

"Do not open any contract attached to Ty while you redirect it."

"The wire stays closed, and the cloth keeps every word underneath."

Nana hooked the coffin runner beneath the painted tread. She bent her flattened index finger around its curve and drew the east pull across her palm.

The finger seam tore from knuckle to wrist.

Red metal peeled back along the split without blood. The hand lost its guide shape around Todd's staff, which dropped against the coffin runner and scraped over the black cloth.

One fiber caught beneath Nana's cord knot.

She left it there.

The east pull took the petrified blade's weight from the stair. Tiral shouted for his crew to lower the timber rather than chase it. Twelve boots moved behind the mortar line while Mattison drove a chisel into the service door hinge.

Nana used her living hand to shove Todd's staff through the lower gap.

The brass marker went first. The cut red cord followed. The capsule section slid beyond her reach and took the hidden black fiber with it.

Todd's route closed around the painted tread.

Nana's climbing line remained tied to the staff for one last pull. Through it, she felt stone, a chain under load, and someone catching the wood with both hands.

She cut the line at her waist.

The free end vanished after Todd's staff. Griswald's stair lost its clean route toward Nana's body.

Her red hand stayed spread beneath the coffin runner. The torn finger seam refused to close when she tried to make a fist.

Mattison struck the wall three times.

"The gate crew is level, and your recovery seal remains with Tiral."

"Keep it there until his crew receives every line of pay."

"Your name now carries the broken service door and one stolen route."

"Add the coffin runner after I learn who packed it."

Nana pulled the iron farther through the side joint.

Eleven restraint rubs crossed its underside. Each groove matched a different strap width. The newest still held quarry dust and a strand of cut hair.

The backward contract beneath the cloth tugged toward the east turn. Todd's route pulled from below, weaker now that Nana had cut her cord.

She could leave the runner braced beneath the stair and climb after the staff before the lower gap sealed. The blade weight would return to Mattison's crew when the east pull moved on.

Nana folded her damaged metal hand around the runner with help from her living fingers.

"The west gate keeps its brace, and I am taking the coffin road away from it."

Mattison's chisel struck once against the hinge, recording the direction she had chosen.

Nana carried the curved iron into the east turn. The black cloth stayed locked beneath the severed ankle wire, and Todd's stair closed behind her without the red line.

Three knocks met the runner from inside the next wall, all at coffin height.