The collar came free with a wet sound Iven felt in his teeth.
Above the gallery, Vessa took its weight into the sling. Sera kept both hands on the padded cradle around the living strand. The iron lip lifted another finger’s breadth, and the tissue beneath it slowly widened into the space it had been denied.
No one cheered this time.
The thing they had freed was not a rope, though Iven’s hands kept wanting to understand it that way. Its surface changed beneath Sera’s lamp. A narrow darkened band marked where the collar had pressed it against stone. Beyond that band, fine branches carried movement into the surrounding sheath.
The guardian behind the first barrier scraped once, softly.
“Don’t release anything yet,” Kesh said.
“I wasn’t going to,” Harl answered.
Iven remained beside the second rib while Vessa secured the old collar. A drop fell from its underside and struck the floor near his boot. He stepped clear so Sera could see where it had landed. Nothing in the chart above him justified pretending every fluid was harmless.
