From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

The black shard pulled Todd's right arm into the wall while the prisoner's ankle chain dragged the rest of him toward the floor.

Another ceiling hook dropped between them. Todd caught its shaft across his shoulder, lost a strip of green skin, and forced it sideways until the point lodged in a crack.

The woman under him kicked at the floor loop. "You climbed into a collapsing prison without rope, tools, or any idea how to get back out."

"The floor swallowed the part that actually worked."

Three hours ago, the shard had been dust under General Mattison's chisel. The Cross Link Blade remained inside its stone shell after King Griswald vanished. Nana had wanted one loose piece tested before workers tried moving the whole thing out of the damaged judgment quarter.

Mattison had kept twelve masons behind the old judgment gate. Nana had pushed them farther back and tied the climbing cord around Todd's waist with her red metal hand.

"You get ten feet, and I pull if the stone sneezes."

Todd made it nine before the floor opened under the first call for help.

Nana's red climbing cord still hung from his belt, ending where the closing route had cut it. She held the other end somewhere above the stone, probably adding this disaster to the list she planned to read at him.

The shard twisted in Todd's fist. A thought arrived behind his teeth in a voice he had spent too long trying to find.

If Kestra charges my skull and ribs as separate beds, Jade gets to argue the bill.

Todd forgot the hooks long enough for one to strike his back. Its blunt side knocked him onto one knee.

Ty was alive. Ty was complaining about a bill while somebody stored his skull separately from his ribs, which sounded close enough to normal for Todd to laugh once.

The black opening in the wall widened. Warm wash water ran beneath it. Beyond the split, he saw a wooden shelf, the edge of a skull, and a woman's hand holding loose bones away from a crate.

Home had never looked stranger or more familiar.

The prisoner grabbed Todd's trouser leg. "You can celebrate after my chain stops cutting through the ankle."

He looked down. The restraint ring had twisted with the route pull and taken skin from both sides of her foot. Her cropped hair was packed with white stone dust. One eye stayed on Todd while the other watched the hooks.

"Tell me your name before I improve this rescue into something even worse."

"Cava Dren. Dying here seemed wasteful to me."

The opening pulled harder on Todd's fist. Letting it take his arm would put the rest of him through after it. Ty waited somewhere beyond that shelf. The Demon King might have a road from there to Todd's children, or at least a better excuse for the years Todd had missed.

Cava's restraint ring lifted from the floor. The chain tightened around her ankle and began drawing her toward the nearest hook point.

Todd planted both feet. He bit the cap from the metal tube at his belt and snapped his wrist. The capsule extended into his staff, knocking one hook into the next. Four shafts tangled above Cava while two continued dropping on separate chains.

"Put both hands beside my left boot, please."

Cava pulled both hands in. Todd laid the black shard under the restraint ring and forced the staff across it as a lever.

The fragment sent Ty's distant thought through his jaw again. This one carried no words. Todd felt alarm at somebody's ruined breath, then Ty's useless attempt to throw a loose hand from its shelf toward that person.

Of course Ty would turn being dismantled into a chance to grab somebody else.

Todd leaned harder.

A crack opened along the shard and ran toward his thumb. The black doorway lost half its width. The shelf beyond tilted away, taking Ty's skull and the warm wash water with it.

"You are breaking the first useful piece anyone has removed from that stone sword since Griswald disappeared."

"Nana can scold me after you are free."

"Whoever Nana is, she should ask from somewhere with a stable ceiling."

The restraint ring tore free. Todd shoved Cava clear as the staff slipped from its brace. Six tangled hooks came down together and buried their points where her chest had been.

One caught her sleeve. Cloth ripped from shoulder to elbow, exposing a black brand pressed into the skin. A long cut crossed six shorter cuts beneath an old crown.

Todd had seen that crown on Griswald's soldiers, letters, and every apology the old king offered before doing whatever he wanted.

The cracked fragment turned toward Cava's shoulder.

"That mark belonged to Griswald before somebody used it to chain you."

Cava wrapped the torn cloth around her ankle. "I used the mark for him before somebody used it on me."

"That answer contains enough missing pieces to build another prison."

"I moved address strips for the seventh account, and changing one number made me cargo."

Todd kept one hand under her arm. "Whose number did you change, and who paid when your useful idea landed?"

"A family with two sick children was marked for the spindle, so I traded their door with an empty clinic. The family escaped. The clinic dropped into a quarry with three workers still inside."

"Then we get out, and you begin with those three names."

Boots struck stone beyond the corridor bend. Todd counted three people. Metal dragged behind each step, too light for swords and too wide for ordinary chains.

He pulled Cava upright. "Where does your brand send us if I let it choose the door?"

"A settlement without addresses, where Kestra Vol charges every bed and Griswald sorts the people afterward."

The name matched Ty's thought.

The route toward the shelf had narrowed to the width of Todd's hand. Cava's brand opened another split behind the fallen hooks, showing a wooden stair descending between walls patched with different kinds of brick.

One door led to Ty. The other gave Cava enough space to escape the guards coming around the bend.

Todd folded the staff to half length and wedged it beneath Cava's arm. "Take the wooden stair while I discourage whoever owns those boots."

"Those guards preserve Cross Link holders and cut the branded runners apart."

"Then they will be polite to me while making a terrible mistake about you."

The first guard rounded the corner carrying a capture hook shaped to close around an elbow. Two more followed with flat masks and red packing cords wrapped around their waists.

"Captain Griswald requires the blade holder breathing. The marked runner may arrive in pieces if her brand remains readable."

Todd swung the shortened staff into the lead hook. The impact turned the guard into the wall and sent the metal jaw spinning across the floor.

The other two cast their packing cords. Todd caught one around his forearm and pulled its owner forward. Cava took the loose capture hook and drove its blunt hinge into the guard's knee.

She looked surprised by her own choice. Todd approved.

"You can explain the number change while we use your wrong door."

"My door reaches Griswald's freight, which makes your confidence poorly informed."

"My confidence survived raising two children, so Griswald can wait his turn."

The final guard tightened the cord around Todd's arm. Behind him, the path toward Ty reopened for one breath. Todd saw the skull turn on its shelf. The familiar thought pressed against the shard, close enough for Todd to answer if he stepped back.

He wrapped the cord around his staff and hauled the guard into the pile of hooks.

Cava reached the wooden stair. Her brand pulled the wrong opening around her shoulder, bending her toward the dark steps.

Todd cut one long line and six short ones into the brass end of a fallen packing cord. He tied it to the severed end of Nana's red cord and pushed both into a crack where the closing route could carry them upward.

Nana would find the crown in the wax and follow the damage. She always had.

Todd put Cava's arm over his shoulder and entered the wooden stair with her.

The opening toward Ty closed behind his heel. Griswald's capture clasp remained locked around the cracked shard in Todd's hand.

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