Chapter 4: MORE THAN THREE METERS

Sio woke with his cheek pressed against his notebook, the pencil still caught between his fingers and last night’s three questions waiting beneath him. His neck protested when he lifted his head, followed shortly by his shoulder and something unpleasant along his spine. Before he could decide which part of his body had suffered most from sleeping at the desk, his mother knocked on the bedroom door.

"Sio? You awake?"

He peeled his cheek from the page and blinked at the faint pencil mark it had probably left there.

"Debatable."

"The growhouse parcel."

Sio dragged a hand through his hair.

"I remembered."

"You didn’t."

"I remembered when you reminded me."

"That’s called being reminded."

Her footsteps were already disappearing downstairs before Sio could improve his argument. He stared after her for a moment, decided there was no version of it he could still win, and dragged himself upright.

He changed, splashed water over his face, and checked his System once before leaving. The unknown Claim was still occupying his first slot. The anomalous Scar remained with it. Apparently, neither had decided to become less ridiculous while he slept.

Outside, the neighborhood had already turned toward the morning sun. Broad solar leaves unfolded above the streets, feeding gathered warmth through pale channels running into the surrounding homes, while water trickled between garden beds beside the walkways. Sio had walked these terraces his entire life without thinking much about the distances between things. After last night’s experiments, he couldn’t seem to stop.

Three metres between two solar trees.

Perhaps six across the nearest water channel.

Considerably farther between rooftops.

He caught himself estimating the distance from one bridge railing to another and frowned. At this rate, his first Claim was going to turn him into a very irritating measuring instrument.

The growhouse sat several terraces below their home, its glass canopy already misted from the humid air within. The woman behind the collection counter recognized him before he reached her and pushed a wrapped parcel across the surface.

"Tell your mother the blueleaf won’t keep past tomorrow."

Sio tucked the parcel beneath one arm.

"I’ll tell her."

The woman stopped reaching for the next customer’s token and gave him a suspicious look.

"You said that last time."

"I eventually told her."

"After it spoiled."

Sio considered defending himself, realized the facts were against him, and settled for,

"Still counts."

"It absolutely does not."

She waved him away before he could produce another argument. Sio left the growhouse smiling, stepped back onto the morning path, and nearly continued home before noticing a man standing across the street.

There was nothing particularly memorable about him. Short dark hair, plain clothes, narrow shoulders. He stood beneath a solar tree with the casual stillness of someone waiting for another person to arrive. Sio might have forgotten him immediately if the stranger hadn’t turned at almost the exact moment Sio looked over.

Their eyes met, and something cold settled into Sio’s stomach.

He didn’t know why. The man hadn’t moved toward him or even changed expression, but yesterday had given Sio considerably more respect for instincts he couldn’t explain. Instead of taking the direct path home, he turned toward one of the bridges leading farther down the terrace.

Footsteps followed him across it.

Sio kept his pace casual and took the next path on the left. The footsteps changed direction with him. He tried again, this time choosing a narrow walkway through a line of residential gardens. When the same measured steps followed several seconds later, the harmless explanations he’d been trying to invent began falling apart.

Then he thought of his mother.

She was home.

Sio’s unease sharpened immediately. Whatever this was, he wasn’t taking it anywhere near her.

He changed direction a third time and headed downhill toward the morning market, where the streets would be busier. His pace increased without quite becoming a run. When he finally glanced over his shoulder, however, the path behind him was empty.

Sio slowed.

For several seconds, embarrassment managed to replace fear. Maybe yesterday had simply left him jumping at anything remotely strange. He’d watched the sky split open, been attacked by something that shouldn’t have been able to enter the living world, accidentally Claimed it, and then wandered through an impossible city filled with pieces of that same creature. A little paranoia probably came with the experience.

He exhaled, adjusted the parcel beneath his arm, and turned the next corner.

The stranger was waiting there.

Sio stopped so abruptly that someone behind him nearly walked into his shoulder. He knew these streets. There was no route that should have put the man ahead of him that quickly.

Then something moved beneath the stranger’s neck.

A slow bulge travelled beneath the skin, crossing from one side of his throat to the other before disappearing beneath his collar.

Every excuse Sio had been making for him vanished.

The stranger tilted his head.

"Where is it?"

Sio backed away, no longer caring how suspicious he looked.

"Where’s what?"

"The one that crossed."

Something inside Sio reacted.

The response was so sudden and violent that his breath caught. The creature he’d Claimed had spent every encounter with him furious, but this felt different. Its aggression was still there, twisting somewhere beyond Sio’s awareness, yet something else moved beneath it.

Recognition.

Maybe even alarm.

The stranger noticed. His eyes sharpened, and he stepped closer, studying Sio as though something he’d been searching for had finally answered.

"You carry it."

Sio didn’t bother asking another question. He ran.

A force struck him from behind before he’d made it more than a few steps. His feet left the ground, the parcel flew from beneath his arm, and his shoulder slammed into a garden wall hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.

People shouted nearby. Someone screamed when part of the flowering wall cracked. Sio hit the ground beside a water channel and barely managed to push himself onto one knee before the stranger curled his fingers.

Something seized Sio’s entire body.

He was dragged backward across the stone.

Sio caught the edge of the channel with both hands and held on. Rough stone scraped his palms while his shoes skidded uselessly behind him. Water spilled across his wrists, cold against skin already burning from the friction.

"What the hell are you?" he shouted, twisting enough to look back.

The stranger’s expression barely changed. His fingers simply tightened, and the pull became stronger.

Sio’s grip broke.

He shot backward toward the man, but something inside him reacted before he reached him.

His vision changed.

For a fraction of a second, Sio thought he’d struck his head harder than he’d realized. Then the world remained exactly where it was while something new appeared over it.

Paths.

Faint lines threaded through everything around him. Water followed one as it spilled from the channel. Fleeing pedestrians dragged others behind their movement. Smaller lines flashed from falling stones, fluttering leaves, even the parcel skidding across the pavement.

One path was brighter than all the others.

It stretched directly from the stranger’s raised hand toward Sio.

He had no idea what he was seeing. His body understood before his mind did.

Sio twisted sideways.

Instead of flying into the stranger’s waiting grasp, he struck the pavement beside him and rolled over one shoulder. Another path appeared immediately, flashing from the stranger’s hand toward Sio’s head.

Sio ducked, and an invisible impact tore into the wall behind him. Stone cracked and sprayed across his back.

He scrambled away and stared at the crater. That had been aimed at his skull.

Another path formed. This time he moved before the attack came. The force passed close enough to disturb his hair and ripped flowering vines from the wall where he’d been standing.

The strange vision still made almost no sense. Sio didn’t know whether the lines represented force, motion, intention, or something else entirely, but they were warning him where movement was going.

〈 ANOMALOUS SCAR RESPONSE 〉

Warm blood touched his upper lip.

Sio wiped it away with the back of his hand and found red across his knuckles. The paths flickered whenever his concentration slipped, and forcing them back into focus sent pressure steadily deeper behind his eyes.

The stranger looked more disturbed by the reaction than Sio did.

"You..." His gaze moved from Sio’s eyes to the blood beneath his nose. Something shifted once beneath his jaw. "You are Veyr."

Sio kept retreating, one hand raised instinctively between them.

"That’s the first thing you’ve said that I actually understand."

The stranger raised both hands.

Loose stones began trembling across the pavement. Water tore free from the channel in twisting streams, a pruning tool ripped itself from an abandoned basket, and fragments from the broken garden wall lifted around him.

Sio’s vision filled with paths. Dozens of them crossed over one another until his stomach sank. Seeing where an attack was going turned out to be considerably less useful when everything nearby was preparing to go there at once.

He reached for his Claim instead. The sensation was immediately different from the Scar. The paths belonged close to him, responding from somewhere within. The Claim reached outward.

Sio fixed his attention on the air beside him and another point several metres away.

Here.

There.

Nothing between.

Two black openings formed.

The first remained barely wide enough for his shoulder. Sio forced it larger, and pain stabbed through his skull almost immediately.

〈 BURDEN EXCEEDS CURRENT HOST CAPACITY 〉

"I know," Sio muttered through clenched teeth. "Very helpful."

The first stone flew, and Sio threw himself through the opening.

For one impossible instant, the sensations from his Scar and Claim overlapped. Sio still saw the paths of the incoming debris, but there was another route among them now, one connecting the two openings.

Not distance.

A path.

He felt it as clearly as he felt the stones flying toward him.

Then space folded.

Sio struck the ground five metres away, rolled twice, and barely stopped himself from tumbling into another water channel. Behind him, the barrage crashed into the place he’d just occupied. Stone shattered. Water burst outward. The pruning tool embedded itself halfway into the damaged wall.

For several breaths, Sio could only stare.

He’d actually done it.

Not a pencil.

Not one finger.

His entire body.

A breathless laugh escaped him before common sense could object.

"Okay... that’s new."

A hand closed around his throat.

The stranger hauled him upright before Sio had time to recover. His back struck the wall, and Sio grabbed the man’s wrist with both hands, kicking uselessly at his stomach while the grip around his neck tightened.

Warm human skin shifted beneath Sio’s fingers.

Then something much larger moved under it.

A shape pressed outward from inside the stranger’s arm, travelling beneath the flesh until it pushed directly against Sio’s palms. Whatever remained of his curiosity disappeared.

He struggled harder.

The stranger pulled him close enough that Sio could see tiny movements beneath the skin around his eyes.

"Veyr..." he murmured, tightening his grip. "And Riven."

Sio reached desperately for his Claim. A black point flickered beside his shoulder but collapsed almost immediately when pain tore through his skull.

His Scar was still active. Paths surrounded them, blurred now by his failing concentration. One gathered beneath the stranger’s free hand as it pressed flat against Sio’s chest.

Sio could see exactly where the force would travel.

Straight through him.

Knowing didn’t help when he had nowhere to move.

The stranger stared at him with something approaching disbelief.

"Impossible."

Sio’s lungs burned. His fingers clawed at the wrist around his throat and slowly began losing strength.

Thirteen years.

He’d spent thirteen years trying to make a Claim. Thirteen years wondering what his first one might become.

He had finally succeeded and apparently wasn’t going to survive with it for forty-eight hours.

That has to be some kind of record.

The thought was stupid enough that anger briefly managed to fight through the fear.

Then the stranger’s attention shifted.

The pressure against Sio’s chest disappeared. The hand around his throat loosened enough for him to drag in half a breath.

Sio followed the stranger’s gaze.

A man and woman were approaching along the damaged path.