I don’t think this is good, Surit said.

No! Pretty bad, actually! Tennal said, and Surit saw what he saw: the maelstrom throwing out new tendrils as if in reaction to the disturbance, perilously close to the tiny rings of Archer Link Station.

The heart of the link pulsed behind them, with its fractal tunnels and dangerous rifts.

Surit said, What if—

Oh, Tennal said. Of course. There was no moment where he weighed the idea. It had come from Surit; it went straight to Tennal carrying it out.

Tennal hovered their presence at the edge of the portal, like a rock in the current. Surit unspooled a steady flow of energy to keep them there and fed it to Tennal. There was no question that Oma would see them. It was hard to know now what was a fight about the coup in Exana and what was an imprint of the ghosts in their minds, pacing through a puppet show of aliens who had fought for reasons too ancient to remember. Tennal, Surit, Oma—all three of them had thrown themselves into the alien patterns too deeply, too thoughtlessly. And none of them were going to come out of this alive.

Don’t think that, Tennal said. This will work. Watch.

They floated at the edge of the portal, motionless. Oma came on, the fabric of the link shrieking around her, like a meteor.

Will it?

I’m just very good at fucking up other people’s plans.

Oma hit them.

They shattered into pieces. It hurt exquisitely, it hurt on a dimensional axis Surit didn’t even know could hurt. He—they—he nearly fell apart. They were still synced, but only because power was pouring from Surit to Tennal like blood.

In the same instant, Tennal slithered the last fragments of their presence behind the composite hundreds of Oma’s, and struck.

They didn’t try to do damage. They only added momentum to the trajectory.

Shock radiated from the mass of souls—denial, fury. But Oma’s consciousness already had momentum, and Tennal had leverage and all of Surit’s reserves. The shifting, multifaceted presence, magnificent like the sun was magnificent, plunged into one of the deep tunnels of the link.

Tennal-Surit knew what to do, how to protect their space, from some instinct deep in their ancestral memory. But Surit was almost spent. I need more energy, Tennal said urgently. Please! Now!

The fragments of Surit didn’t answer. He was nearly beyond consciousness, a collection of memories and thoughts unraveling in the currents. But he still had something left. The final impact had ripped open the reservoir of his architect powers like a wound, and the last thing he did was force it wider. His powers had never been useful for much. He could use them for this.

He felt Tennal take them and seal the single tunnel, the one root among thousands that Oma had fallen through.