"Get your hands off me before I rip them off."
Dax spat it through gritted teeth. Gravel in his voice. His back was slammed against the conduit wall and I was pinned right into his chest, my fist twisted in the collar of his judge's coat.
The Tribunal lock between us wasn't humming anymore. It was screaming. That jagged ring of metal binding our wrists, vibrating so hard my teeth ached.
"Shut up and breathe," I snapped. "You flatline, we both fry. That your big plan? Die a hero for the Tribunal that just tried to execute us in a maintenance tunnel?"
His pulse was going crazy under his skin. Skipping. Stuttering. Pupils blown wide, eyes clouded.
He tried to shove me back. To be the predator again. The lock jerked and burned — white-hot — and yanked us closer instead.
"Don't... take orders... from couriers," he wheezed.
"Then stop dying!" I grabbed his jaw. Forced him to look at me. His skin was clammy. He smelled like ozone and cold rain. "Eyes on me, Dax. Stay here. Don't you drift on me."
For a second it wasn't just fear.
His gaze dropped to my mouth. My thumb was dug hard into the stubble on his chin. Chest to chest, I could feel every ragged breath he took. The air went thick. Charged. Not just the lock.
He didn't kiss me. He leaned in and breathed me in. Like he wanted to memorize the cheap engine oil on my jacket before we both burned up.
Then the lock clicked.
Not a real click. A digital snap right inside our skulls. A ghost-blue projection burst out of the ring and lit up the whole tunnel.
"Echo One," I whispered.
It wasn't a recording. It was a ripped memory. The courthouse. That sterile white corridor from the trial logs.
The head clerk was there. That spineless bureaucrat who stamped every form. He wasn't filing. He was sliding a false seal onto the power core's maintenance log. Careful. Precise. A perfect forgery.
"That's him," I said. My voice shook. "That's the first seal. He planted it before the blast even happened. I didn't sabotage the core, Dax. They set it to fail."
Dax stared, his jaw tight. "Tribunal doesn't forge seals. They don't need to. They just erase people."
"Maybe they needed a scapegoat," I shot back. I pressed closer without meaning to. His heat was the only thing cutting the tunnel's chill. "Maybe they needed someone to blame for whatever really went wrong in the core. Why else lock us together? Why not just kill me and send you back to your fancy office?"
His hand shot out. Not the bound one. The free one. He grabbed my bare wrist. Tight. Too tight. Like he didn't know how to hold without conquering.
"You think I'm a puppet, Venn?" he growled.
"I think you're a very well-dressed tool," I said. Didn't pull away. "Prove me wrong."
He let out this harsh, dry laugh that broke into a cough. The projection dissolved into digital ash.
And Dax's head snapped back. Hit the wall with a thud.
"Dax? Hey — what is it?"
He didn't answer. Eyes vacant. Searching for something that wasn't there.
"Feels like someone ran a rail-gun through my skull," he gritted out. His voice was thin. Shaken.
I stepped back. The loss of contact hit me cold. The lock's glow had dimmed, but new runes were etching themselves into the metal, slow and cruel.
"The price," I whispered.
"What price?" He was trying to sound like the Judge again. Cold. Clipped. It didn't land.
"The lock doesn't give Echoes for free," I said. My stomach dropped. I'd heard the brokers whisper about it underground. "Information isn't free in the loop. It's traded. Every time we see an Echo, we lose something. A memory. A piece of who we are."
"You're telling me I'm paying for a video clip with brain cells? Don't be ridiculous."
"Am I?" I tilted my chin up at him. "What'd you have for breakfast three loops ago? What's the name of the street you grew up on? Or is it all just... gray?"
He froze.
His eyes narrowed. Searching inside his own head. For one heartbeat his mask slipped and he looked terrified. Not of the Tribunal. Of the empty space opening up inside him.
His hand lifted. Hovered an inch from my cheek. I could feel the heat coming off his palm. He didn't touch me. The space between us felt heavier than touch.
"I remember the mission," he whispered. Low. Dangerous. "I remember the hunt. I remember you screaming in the execution chair."
"That's not a memory," I said softly. "That's a record. There's a difference."
He closed the gap. Chest brushing mine. His breath hot against my ear. My back hit the opposite wall and he caged me there, his body heat bleeding through my jacket.
"And what are you losing, courier?" he murmured. "What's it taking from you?"
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "But I can feel it. Like a smudge on a painting. Something's gone."
The lock flared.
A violent pulse of gold light threw us both to the floor. Metal clanged on grating. Dax's eyes lit up amber — a message scrolling across his retinal HUD, bleeding through his irises.
I scrambled up. Grabbed his arm. "What does it say? Dax! What does it say?"
He stayed down. Staring at the ceiling. Blank.
"You're the girl from the core," he said slowly. No emotion at all.
I went cold. "What?"
"The one I'm supposed to kill," he went on. Like he was reading a file. "But... I can't remember your name. Why can't I remember your name?"
Blood drained from my face. It didn't take a random memory. It took the bridge between us.
The lock chimed. Cruel and bright. Words shimmered in the air between us:
**[Echo Two: Unlocked. Price: Subject B's Identity.]**
"Dax," I whispered. I reached for his shoulder. "My name is Mara. Mara Venn. Say it. Remember?"
He stood in one fluid motion. The Judge was back. The man was gone. He didn't offer me a hand.
"I don't care what your name is," he said, voice like ice. "Tell me where the next Echo is, or I'll find a way to make this lock hurt more."
He turned for the exit. Took one step.
And a signal cut through the silence. Not the lock. A comms frequency. Low. Crackling. Coming from the deepest level of the Spire — the one place we're forbidden to go.
"...Mara? Mara, can you hear me? Help — it's so dark down here —"