The deflected leftover piece of the final wave boiled across the threshold of the northern service passage. Then, its unguided current instinctively sought a human nervous system to serve as a temporary grounding center. In the old stonework of the Aperture Court, any surge that entered the northern service passage was meant to be funneled straight into the iron chair of the seal chamber. Or, if the main chair was vacant, into the nearest living tester standing in the northern holding room where Halin had been chained during the first watch and where Reth Mal had been left disconnected before the retreat.
Now both the seal court chair and the northern holding chamber were fully empty of human captives. Halin was miles down the southern trail at the lower shepherd’s hospice with Mina, Kes, Pera, and Senn. Reth Mal had been dragged clear of the upper ridge hours ago with his copper tallies broken. And the eight defenders outside refused to offer a single living body to the machine.
Standing at the inner door post of the northern chamber doorway behind Hall Mistress Soran’s bruised spear-arm, Nara Soth met the boiling grey-white surge with the quiet, unrushed power of a Listening Crown fighter who knew every inch of the mountain’s plumbing from the inside.
