Chapter 188: Marrow Vault

"Flesh," the echo said. "At last, a vessel that can hold everything it saves, and limbs strong enough to make every route feed it. Forever, and no one will ever know."

The Marrow Vault responded.

Red marrow filled the basin around the second source seat. The vault walls were made of white bone, and they moved as if they had lungs. The heartbeat they had felt on the way down grew stronger, until Austin Veyron could feel it in his own chest. Above the vault, the root collars tightened around the orchard workers’ throats, pulling thin red lines down into the echo’s rib cage.

Nyra held up the heart shard.

"It’s using their collars to build muscle and blood," she said. "Once it’s finished growing, every orchard route will belong to it."

The echo walked away from the source seat.

It was almost fully human in shape now, with roots for tendons and white bones forming its rib cage. A red-and-black glow burned beneath the bones. Its face was featureless, but its mouth opened to reveal routes moving inside it.

"I will become something more than human," it said. "Do not fear me."

Austin Veyron’s wrist brand stung.

Now that the echo had built a body for itself, it had become even more dangerous. There was a body DEVOUR could attack and take over, a source seat to consume, and a basin rich with marrow.

Veyra stepped in front of Austin Veyron.

"Name it."

"I want the marrow source."

"What will it produce?"

"Power in my flesh. A body that can never lose a route."

"If it did that, we’d just be creating another master," Sable said, holding up her broken crown shard.

Arel’s voice came through the marker Ceryn had left at the count post.

"The workers are at the public count posts. We can see the collars pulsing. Tell us what you need marked."

"I want every collar marked with the wearer’s name and pressure," Tessa said, looking over the vault channels. "No one cuts alone. Ceryn, can you turn the flow of nutrients away from the source seat?"

Ceryn studied the carvings on the vault wall. "Only if Nyra can hold the source seat’s flow. It will try to claim the most powerful body it can find."

Nyra nodded. "I can keep the source in check. I refuse to become its vessel."

"Do you want to do that?" Austin Veyron asked.

"Yes."

She walked to the edge of the marrow basin. It was so hot that the air shimmered around it, and the smell was awful, like a slaughterhouse left out in the sun.

Nyra spread blue-black light over the source seat. The red marrow tried to reach up and grab her ankles, but she didn’t pull it toward herself. She simply kept it from spreading any further.

The echo let out a loud roar, and the bone vault amplified the sound.

Root constructs made of flesh crawled out of the basin.

Their arms were made of bunched roots, and their skulls were grown from marrow pods. Each one carried a red-stained sickle.

THE BODY KEEPS WHAT IT SAVES.

One came at Veyra.

She parried it with a quick strike. Her sword deflected the sickle and cut the red line running through the construct’s chest. Rin’s arrow split its skull. Orena slammed her spear into the ground and spun out of the way of another construct’s lashing roots.

Bone and root debris scattered across the floor of the vault. One of the constructs reached for Calder.

His old contestant brand glowed on his wrist.

"It knows about the successor scar," he said.

"Then we’ll give it a different ending," Sable said, placing the shard against his brand. The brand dimmed, and Calder dodged the roots and struck the construct with a stone hammer he had found in the Ashen Stair pack. Its bone leg broke.

Austin Veyron could see the phrase inside the constructs.

THE BODY KEEPS WHAT IT SAVES.

They didn’t want to protect anyone. They wanted to claim everyone they saved. Austin Veyron thought about all the people he had pulled out of ruins, and how easily DEVOUR could have claimed them all for itself.

"Target," he said. "The keeps-what-it-saves clause. Not the workers. Not the marrow. Not the source seat."

"Witnessed," Veyra responded.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

He pressed the white root chain against the construct’s chest.

DEVOUR opened. It tasted like a hand closing around someone who had only asked for help.

THE BODY KEEPS WHAT IT SAVES.

He consumed keeps.

The construct stopped moving and released its grip on the red marrow. The other constructs faltered as the red lines on their chests began to disappear. They weren’t harmless, but they no longer wanted to drag anyone toward the source seat.

Ceryn turned the first valve in the wall. It creaked and pushed some of the red fluid out of the veins running along the walls.

Above them, Arel read out the numbers from the workers.

"Four collars are gaining pressure in the south grove. Two are steady in the west. One in the east needs help."

Tessa marked them on the route sheets. "Release the east nutrient line first."

The marrow shifted through the vault channels.

A line of it shot toward the east, but Nyra blocked it until Ceryn could turn another valve. The pressure flowed into an open chamber instead of into the worker’s collar.

They heard the collar break above them, then someone gasping for air. Then yelling, and someone began to cry.

"Our first worker is free," Arel gasped through the marker.

The echo watched its power leaving it. Then it lunged for Nyra.

The body it had made was very fast. It broke through the boundary and tried to grab the heart shard. Veyra blocked it and took the hit on her pauldron. Her armor bent with a screech of metal, and she dropped to one knee with a grunt of pain. Sable cut the echo’s arm off at the elbow, but black roots started growing another one.

Austin Veyron could see what was holding its body together: a red claim line running from its chest to the source seat.

It wanted to own the body it had created. If it could do that, no one could ever take the body away from it, because taking away something necessary to life would be impossible.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The body-anchor ownership line. Not the echo’s raw body. Not the seat. Not Nyra."

"Witnessed," Veyra replied, in pain.

He wrapped the chain around the red line.

DEVOUR opened. It tasted like a name carved into a living door.

THE SOURCE MAKES ONE NECESSARY BODY.

He consumed necessary.

The echo let out a scream.

Its body cracked open, and the marrow began flowing backward into the vault’s open chambers. Above them, three more collars broke as the workers followed the public count.

The echo backed away from the source seat.

For the first time, its body looked vulnerable. Cracks ran through its bones, and the roots in its limbs twitched as though they couldn’t hold their shape.

"You weaken the power of saving," it snarled.

"We make power something people can question," Austin Veyron said.

The relay marker carried the sound of the workers calling out their numbers, one voice after another, steady and clear.

Nyra widened the boundary around the source seat. Ceryn and Tessa turned the valves, and the marrow spread evenly throughout the orchard. The workers, the pods, and the medicine stores all received their nutrients, and the soil was replenished.

The red glow faded to a lighter pink, and the heartbeat slowed. The source seat cracked open.

A new route appeared beneath it, heading northeast, marked with a symbol of black trees forming a gate.

THE BLACK ORCHARD GATE.

The echo saw it too.

Its body crumbled in on itself as its limbs fell apart like a discarded shell, leaving only a small black-and-white core. It shot into the new route before Austin Veyron could stop it.

The Marrow Vault shook as it passed.

Tessa marked it on the map. "The demon-hunter frontier. The carcass fields. If it reaches that gate, it can use the dead demons to build an army."

Veyra tried to stand, one hand on her shoulder. "We need to go."

Austin Veyron grabbed her arm and helped her the rest of the way up, and she let him, which meant she was hurt worse than she was letting on.

"We got most of the collars off," Arel said through the marker. "The workers are starting to count the nutrients."

Austin Veyron looked at the broken source seat and the path the echo had taken. Every source they broke left its mark on his body. His wrist ached, and his palm still bore the burn from the Ashen Stair.

The sovereign echo was weaker.

But every source path was teaching it how to build itself a body.

The Black Orchard Gate waited for it beyond the Bone Orchard.