Chapter 951 - 951: Ty Knows Which Hand Jade Favors

Jade put her living hand through the part missing from Corven's chest.

Ty caught her coat belt with two chain links before the prison rail took her shoulder. She leaned farther anyway, left arm buried to the elbow in a dead man's open road.

"Your left hand chooses people before permission arrives."

"It learned from your entire skeleton, so hold my waist and complain later."

Her fingers found the ration cloth tied around the surviving worker's hand. The cloth pulled tight across Corven's cut ribs.

The trapped hand turned palm upward. Two fingers stayed bound to the stake while the thumb worked a loose end around Jade's index finger. The worker chose the grip and pulled once to test whether Jade answered.

Jade pulled back once.

On the far side, four blank helms walked beside Rillhold's oldest stake. Three hung from their belts. The fourth worker dragged one foot while both tied fingers kept closing around the stone.

The Reaper raised its scythe.

Ty pulled its neck into his ribs and shoved his right hand against the white elbow. The blade still turned toward Corven's open chest.

Jade's borrowed hand turned with it. Nessa's cutter rose from her side and pointed across Ty's uneven rib.

"Your white hand wants the scythe, while your left already chose the worker."

"Then give the white hand a useful grip."

Loosening the chain around the Reaper's neck by one link brought the scythe shaft within Jade's cutter hook. Her borrowed fingers closed around the handle below the Reaper's grip.

White fire ran from her knuckles to the hollow above its right eye.

The White Reaper pulled.

Jade's right shoulder moved toward Ty. Her left stayed inside Corven, wrapped around the worker's ration cloth.

The chain at her waist took both directions.

The same living hand had closed around Ty's loose rib in the flooded Earth gym before she understood which pieces of him had come home. Warm bone, black water, and a hook trying to use the dead had been enough information for her.

Ty knew which side she would protect.

He wrapped one more link around her waist and left her left shoulder free.

A boot stepped onto the prison rail beyond Corven.

Short black nails circled its sole. Each point entered a different square punch, letting the wearer stand across the moving rail without leaning toward the stolen stake.

The second boot carried another ring of nails.

The person above them wore a plain coat with the sleeves cut off at both elbows. No crown or seventh account mark showed. A hammer hung from one wrist by a cord.

He watched the stake point, the rail punches, and the moving bands. The living hand tied beside his boot received less attention than a nail head that had begun leaning out of square.

The hammer drove a black nail through the surviving worker's waist belt and into Rillhold's stake.

The worker's tied fingers opened.

Jade caught the cloth before it slipped away.

Cava crouched beside Corven's return plate with her recovery jaw still locked around the crown.

"Griswald moved this body, but those boot nails belong to whoever receives his deliveries."

"Can that plate pull them off that nail?"

"It can pull Corven back to the seventh account, and I refuse to make him carry anyone else."

Cava put one knee against Corven's iron belt and kept the plate from rotating.

"I changed addresses because leaving before delivery let me call the work clean, and Corven coming back through that socket has taken the lie away."

Cava turned the recovery jaw until the plate bent across Griswald's crown. The return line tightened around Corven and stopped taking new weight.

At Nessa's shoulder, Todd's plain staff bowed another inch.

The recovered field finger held the loose band's square punch. Its stored grip twisted toward the old stake while Nessa's cage needles pushed against her sleeve.

"Turn the band until Sennik's old direction pulls against the new nail."

Nessa pressed her usable hand over the recovered wrist.

"My cage turns with it, and Todd loses the shoulder if his staff slips."

Todd widened his stance behind her.

"My staff already survived ownership disputes, prison stairs, and your shoulder. Turn the band."

The first pressure lifted Nessa's right elbow above the staff. Her fingers stayed fixed toward Corven while the cage needles moved deeper under the cloth.

Todd pushed the wood up until it met her harness again.

"Your shoulder has one more inch before this brace becomes decoration."

"Turn the band and let my shoulder complain."

Nessa put her weight through the recovered finger.

The loose band rotated around one square punch. Its stored white direction caught the black nail on the far side of Corven and pulled it toward Rillhold's empty socket.

The nailed operator struck again.

The hammer drove the head flat against the worker's belt. One of the worker's legs dropped toward the prison rail while the other stayed beside the stake.

The worker used Jade's finger loop to pull their chest away from the nail. That small movement turned the belt enough for its edge to scrape a line across the stone. The nailed operator corrected the stake instead of the person and struck the side of the belt with his hammer.

Jade's damaged eye showed the white ending divide between those two directions.

"Ty, cut the nail before the worker loses whichever half still carries their heart."

The Reaper wanted the same path.

Its scythe entered Corven's open road with Jade's borrowed hand still gripping the shaft. Ty kept the blade above the living arm by pulling the Reaper's shoulder into his chest.

His crooked rib slipped below the white armpit. Pressure from the scythe shaft entered the fracture and turned his green sight sideways.

Jade felt the chain at her waist tighten.

"Do not pull me back because the worker comes with this hand. Move the white side forward while this grip keeps both of us."

Ty gave her another half step toward the road.

Her left shoulder crossed Corven's chest. The borrowed right stayed behind, locked around the scythe.

White fire stretched across Jade's back between both positions, leaving the cloth intact while the seam above her right shoulder opened and showed white bone beneath.

Ty drove his right hand under the Reaper's elbow. He pushed the joint forward while his jaw pulled the chain around its neck in the other direction.

The blade dropped through Corven.

Jade turned Nessa's cutter against the shaft and forced its dark edge onto the fixed nail.

The nail lost its head. The point pulled through the worker's belt and struck the prison rail between the operator's boots.

The operator stepped onto a new set of square punches before the loose point could choose a down.

Ty hauled the chain at Jade's waist. Jade pulled the ration cloth with her living hand. Nessa kept the old direction inside the rotating band while Todd held her shoulder against the staff.

The surviving worker came through Corven's missing chest feet first.

Iron belts scraped across Corven's ribs. The blank helm caught on the cut breastplate until Cava opened the recovery jaw and used its flat side to lift the rim.

Meya and Ruvan caught the worker beyond the white floor. Talli's clinic line came through the maintenance slot and closed around both ankles before the prison road could choose another direction.

The worker's chest moved beneath the belts.

Meya lifted the blank helm's face plate while Ruvan kept its support frame around the neck. A woman coughed against the lower brace and moved her free thumb until Jade released the ration cloth.

"Bera Tosk, west anchor crew, and those two fingers stay tied until Talli checks my chest."

Talli answered through the clinic tube while Meya guided Bera's heels into the red line.

"Your name is recorded, and nobody touches either finger before your breathing holds."

Bera looked through Corven's open body toward the man with nailed boots.

"He kept the stake level by moving our belts whenever another worker stopped breathing."

Meya put one hand on Bera's helm frame before she could rise.

"Corven returned with you. Keep breathing for Talli."

Jade kept hold of the ration cloth until Meya closed her hand around it too.

Across the prison rail, the nailed operator watched the rescue without following. The hammer rose again and drove a fresh nail through the nearest dead helm into the stolen stake.

The corpse stood beside the stone.

Bera saw it and tried to lift one arm. The belt around her chest pulled toward the new nail even from Rillhold's yard. Talli's red line stopped the movement before her ribs followed.

The Reaper pulled harder on its scythe.

Jade's borrowed shoulder shifted away from her coat. Nessa's cage arm copied the movement along Todd's staff, forcing the recovered field finger to release the band's square punch.

The loose band stayed in the yard.

Beside Jade, the white floor pushed upward beneath an empty sleeve of fire.

A second white hand rose from it and closed around a scythe that was not there.