WAYFARER: CLAIM THE UNCLAIMABLE

The stone beneath Mira’s chair continued to move long after she had stopped reacting to it. Thin ridges travelled through the floor, rising and sinking around her feet while Vise watched Sio’s motionless body with the same interest he had shown when the boy was still conscious enough to answer him.

Mira kept her eyes on Sio’s chest because that faint movement was the only thing in the room she still cared about. His breathing remained shallow and irregular, but it was there, and she silently counted each rise because she was terrified one would eventually fail to come.

Vise lifted one hand, and the platform beneath Sio tilted sharply to the side. His restrained body slid several inches before the cuffs caught him, wrenching his shoulders back and knocking the side of his head against the raised stone.

Mira’s fingers curled against the chair as she watched his body settle again. ”He already told you everything he understands. You kept asking him for things he doesn’t know, and now he can’t even stay conscious long enough to hear you.”

Vise looked at her briefly before returning his attention to Sio. ”Then perhaps pain will remind him of something he forgot.” His tone remained so casual that Mira felt something colder than anger settle inside her.

”You know that isn’t what you’re doing anymore.” Mira’s voice had lost most of its earlier panic and settled into exhausted disgust. ”You found out he doesn’t have the answers you wanted, and instead of accepting that, you decided hurting him was easier than admitting you were wrong.”

Something small changed in Vise’s expression, though he offered no argument. He placed his palm against the table, and the wall beside Sio suddenly drove forward like a piston.

The block struck Sio across the ribs and shoved his body sideways against the restraints. A weak sound escaped him several seconds later, barely more than air forced through damaged lungs, and Mira’s face tightened at the sound.

Vise heard it too and raised two fingers, causing the stone arm to withdraw before driving forward again from a different angle. The second impact struck Sio across the hip and twisted his body hard enough to pull another faint sound from him.

His eyes remained closed throughout it, leaving Mira staring at Vise with an expression that had moved beyond ordinary fear. She looked back toward Sio until the dread in her face became something heavier than panic.

He had never known Silas, had never been given the chance to love or hate the man whose blood Vise seemed determined to punish. Yet Sio was lying unconscious and broken because of a history that belonged to people who had lived it before he was even born.

”Whatever Central Nexus wanted, he already gave you everything he knows.” Mira pulled against the restraints and leaned toward Vise as far as the chair allowed, her voice losing its anger beneath something much more desperate. ”If this is really about Silas, then take it out on me. I was his wife, I chose him, and I shared his life. Sio never even met his father, so please stop making my son pay for something he doesn’t even understand.”

Her eyes returned to Sio, and guilt twisted through her despite knowing none of this was truly hers to carry. Seeing him unconscious beneath restraints while Vise spoke about Silas made every old memory feel like something that had somehow followed her son into this room.

”If somebody has to pay your stupid debt, make it me.” Mira’s voice cracked as she looked back at Vise. ”Beat me, break my hands, punish me for loving the man you hated, or do whatever makes you feel like you finally won. Just leave my son alone before you kill him.”

Vise watched her for several seconds, and the quiet satisfaction that entered his expression made Mira’s stomach turn. His gaze moved from the wife begging to take her son’s place toward the unconscious boy she was trying to protect, and she understood too late that she had offered him exactly the kind of moment he enjoyed.

”You still think I have to choose between you.” Vise spoke almost conversationally, but the pleasure beneath his calm made the words uglier. ”Hurting him makes you offer me everything, and hurting you gives me another way into him. Why would I give either of that up?”

Mira stared at him as the truth settled in. Vise was not choosing whether Silas’s wife or Silas’s son should carry his revenge, because having both of them helpless in the same room was the revenge.

The floor beneath the platform separated into several narrow sections. One rose beneath Sio’s back while another pressed down across his chest, trapping him between them and bending his body until the restraint around his ribs became another source of pain.

Sio’s mouth opened slightly as the pressure increased. A ragged breath escaped, but his eyes still did not open.

Mira lowered her head for several seconds and pressed her lips together. She had already learned that every sound she made became another reason for Vise to continue, so she forced herself to remain quiet even while her entire body trembled.

Vise noticed her silence and let his gaze travel from Mira to Sio. Then he changed the room again, clearly searching for another way to force a reaction from either of them.

The stone beneath Sio suddenly flattened, releasing the pressure across his back. Before his body had time to settle, a heavy column rose from the floor beside the platform and swung across his stomach.

Sio folded weakly around the impact as far as the restraints allowed. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth, and his breathing stopped for long enough that Mira forgot every decision she had made about staying quiet.

”Sio, breathe.” Her voice came out small rather than loud, and her eyes remained fixed on his chest while she fought the restraints with shaking hands. ”Come on, sweetheart. Just breathe once.”

Several seconds passed before Sio dragged in a thin breath. Mira sagged against the chair from relief, while Vise watched her reaction with a satisfaction he made no effort to hide.

”You wanted that.” Mira looked at him through wet eyes and finally understood why his methods kept becoming more excessive. ”You weren’t waiting for him to answer. You wanted to see what I would do when you pushed him far enough.”

Vise approached Mira this time, letting his attention linger on the fear she could no longer completely hide. ”You react more honestly when he stops breathing.” The calmness of the answer disgusted her more than shouting would have.

Mira stared at him until Vise turned away and caused the stone around one of her wrists to open. Her hand dropped free for less than a second before another section of the chair folded over it.

Stone spread her fingers across a flat surface and locked each one separately, leaving her hand exposed while the rest of her arm remained trapped. Mira looked down at the arrangement before turning toward Sio again.

”So now you hurt me and watch him.” Her voice carried exhausted hatred rather than panic. ”You really have reduced both of us to tools for your little obsession.”

Vise formed a narrow stone ridge above her hand. It descended slowly until the edge pressed across her knuckles, enough to hurt without doing permanent damage yet.

Mira closed her eyes when the pressure increased. She refused to call for Sio this time, because if her pain could drag him back toward consciousness, then silence was the last thing she could still give him.

Vise increased the pressure again, and Mira’s shoulders tightened while her breathing became uneven. She kept every sound buried behind clenched teeth as Sio’s fingers moved so faintly across the room that she did not notice at first.

Vise did. The slight shift in his attention told Mira something had happened before she even found the twitching fingers against the platform.

Her expression changed immediately, but she stopped herself before saying Sio’s name. Vise leaned forward with renewed interest while the ridge above her hand pressed harder.

Pain spread through Mira’s fingers until one of them trembled against the stone. Another faint movement answered from Sio, and the sight made her stomach twist with dread rather than hope.

”He’s nearly dead and you’re still treating every twitch like proof your cruelty is working.” Mira stared at Vise with exhausted hatred while trying to keep her hand still. ”You don’t even know whether he understands what’s happening.”

Vise continued watching Sio. ”It worked twice.” His attention never moved from the platform.

”You don’t know that.” Mira’s voice shook despite her effort to control it. ”A dying body moves sometimes.”

Vise lowered the ridge another fraction, and Mira’s breath caught despite herself. Sio’s hand curled weakly against the platform a moment later, making the satisfaction in Vise’s face deepen.

This time the movement did not stop at Sio’s fingers. His eyelids trembled before opening enough to reveal unfocused eyes beneath them, and Mira nearly broke when she saw them.

Relief arrived first, followed immediately by horror because Vise had seen it too. Mira forced herself to speak slowly, terrified that even her voice might pull Sio farther back into the room.

”Sio, don’t do anything.” She kept her voice low because she knew he would struggle to understand even that much. ”You don’t have to help me. Stay still and breathe.”

Sio’s gaze wandered across the room before finally finding Mira. Thought refused to stay together for more than a few seconds, but her face cut through the haze, followed by the strain twisting it and the sight of Vise standing beside her trapped hand.

Sio could not understand everything happening around him, yet he understood enough to know that she was hurting and Vise was the reason. He tried lifting his head and failed, leaving his right hand to scrape weakly across the platform instead.

The movement left a small streak where dried blood had gathered beneath his fingers. Vise saw it and walked toward him with renewed interest.

”You’re awake enough.” Vise stopped beside the platform, while Mira immediately pulled against the chair and told him Sio was barely conscious.

”Whatever you think you saw, leave him alone.” Mira’s voice sharpened with fear, but Vise ignored her and punched Sio across the face.

The strike turned Sio’s head against the platform and reopened the cut near his eyebrow. Vise gave him no time to recover before hitting him again and watching for whatever response the pain might force out of him.

Sio’s vision disappeared for several seconds. When it returned, Vise was still standing over him and Mira’s trapped hand remained visible beyond his shoulder.

Vise caught Sio by the front of his clothing and pulled his upper body slightly from the platform. ”You showed me something before you passed out, so show me again.” The demand reached Sio through the ringing in his head without producing anything useful.

Sio’s lips moved without producing a word. He had already told Vise everything he knew, and there was nothing left inside his head except pain and fragments of training he could barely hold together.

Vise let him fall and turned toward Mira. The stone ridge above her hand pressed down again, drawing a sharp breath from her despite every effort to remain silent.

Sio saw her fingers pinned beneath it, and the sight reached him through the fog more clearly than anything Vise had said. His mind could barely hold a thought together, but one memory returned almost whole: the beach, Arch moving pebbles and driftwood through openings, the notes Sio had written afterward, and the stupid idea that had excited him when he realised his entire body never needed to cross the distance if only his fist did.

He did not try to form an opening. Whatever strength remained inside him felt thin enough to tear, and somewhere beneath the pain he understood that showing Vise even the beginning of the technique would give the man time to prepare for whatever followed.

Vise turned his attention back toward Mira and increased the pressure over her hand. Her fingers trembled beneath the stone, but she kept her teeth clenched and refused to call Sio’s name because she had already watched him destroy himself every time he thought she needed saving.

Sio gathered what remained of himself without moving. His breathing became shallower, his vision narrowed until Vise was little more than a shape beside Mira, and his right hand slowly curled against the platform while every scattered piece of thought narrowed around a single distance.

He had strength for one movement, and even that felt borrowed from a body already finished. Sio fixed his eyes on Vise’s face and drove his fist forward only a few inches.

Darkness opened around his knuckles and beside Vise at almost the same instant. There was no warning for Vise to read, and his defensive barrier flashed into existence only as Sio’s fist emerged almost against his cheek.

The protection formed around a threat that had already arrived. Sio’s knuckles struck him before the barrier could do anything about it.

Physically, the punch was pathetic compared with what it had cost. Vise’s head shifted from the impact and one foot slid half a step across the stone, but there was barely enough strength in Sio’s arm to have staggered an ordinary man.

The impact should have ended there, yet something deeper inside Vise seemed to catch the punch as well. His breath caught, and one hand moved instinctively toward his chest as a second sensation passed through him that he could not place inside muscle or bone.

For a fraction of a second the entire Claimed room shuddered with him. The table trembled against the floor while thin ripples travelled through stone that had obeyed him perfectly moments earlier.

Vise stared at Sio while the last tremor faded beneath his feet. Sio barely saw the reaction, but what little awareness remained was enough to understand that something beyond the physical punch had reached him.

A weak, exhausted joy touched Sio’s face. The technique had worked, and somehow the first person he had ever landed it on was the bastard standing in front of his mother.

That tiny satisfaction lasted less than a heartbeat before whatever had kept Sio conscious finally gave out. His fist dropped against the platform and every trace of tension left his body at once.

His eyes closed completely, his head rolled to the side, and from where Mira sat she could no longer see his chest rise at all. For one horrible moment, the entire room disappeared from her attention except for the stillness of her son.

”Sio? Sweetheart, look at me.” Mira forgot the pain in her hand and threw herself against the restraints, searching his face desperately when nothing answered her. ”Please, just breathe for me.”

Terror took over where exhaustion had been, and she fought hard enough for the stone around her wrists to tear skin. Her eyes searched desperately for the smallest movement in Sio’s chest while her voice broke around his name.

Vise started laughing, and the sound made Mira look at him as if she could not understand how a human being could make it while her son lay motionless a few steps away. He was still touching his chest, but shock had already transformed into something brighter and far more disturbing.

”That reached deeper.” His eyes moved toward the stone around them as another faint tremor passed through the room, and excitement sharpened his expression instead of frightening him. ”Your son hits me once, and suddenly the room feels it too.”

Mira stared at him through tears, unable to comprehend the excitement in his face. ”He might be dead.” Her voice came out hollow because she still could not see Sio breathing.

Vise looked toward Sio for barely a moment before turning back to her. ”And I learned something new just before it happened.” The excitement in his voice made Mira recoil as much as the restraints allowed.

Vise stepped closer with the fascinated energy of someone who had just discovered another part of a puzzle and did not care what had been destroyed to reveal it. He looked from Mira toward Sio’s limp body and then back again, the conclusion pleasing him more with every second.

”Torturing you works.” Vise’s smile returned as he studied her. ”I hurt you, he gives me something he never showed before. Let’s see what else he has.”

”He has nothing left.” Mira pulled harder against the chair as Vise approached her. ”Look at him, you lunatic. He isn’t even moving.”

Vise stopped beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder with that same deliberate familiarity she already hated. Mira tried to wrench herself away, but he kept it there long enough to remind her that every inch of movement inside this room still belonged to him.

”Get your hand off me.” Mira’s voice shook with rage and terror together, and Vise finally moved his hand only to let his fingers settle briefly against her cheek while he studied her as though deciding what part of her would produce the clearest result.

Mira’s revulsion finally overwhelmed whatever caution remained, and she spat directly into his face. Vise went still for a second before wiping his cheek with the back of his hand.

Instead of anger, a strange little smile returned as the wall beside them opened and a heavy metal cleaver slid outward by its handle. Mira’s eyes followed the blade before dropping toward her trapped hand.

The stone beneath her palm shifted immediately, and four narrow ridges rose between her fingers until each one was separated from the others and held firmly against the flat surface. Vise took the cleaver and tested its weight once before placing the broad edge beside Mira’s index finger.

He watched her face before glancing toward Sio’s body as though expecting even that motion to produce another secret. Mira stopped fighting and looked at her son for several seconds before returning her attention to the blade.

Sio still had not moved. Whatever happened to her now, Mira would not call him back into this room even if some fragment of him could still hear her.

Vise noticed her silence and seemed entertained by that too. He adjusted the cleaver until its edge rested directly above the joint and looked toward Sio one last time.

”Let’s find out what one finger gets me.” His grip tightened around the handle while Mira closed her eyes and forced her hand to remain still.

A rectangular seam appeared in the wall directly behind him. Neither Mira nor Vise reacted immediately because the room had changed shape too many times for another line in the stone to mean anything.

The seam descended, turned at the floor and climbed again until a complete doorway existed where Vise’s Claimed wall had been seamless moments earlier. Mira opened her eyes as the handle formed, and Vise caught the change in her expression just as he began to turn.

The handle snapped downward and the door slammed inward with enough force to catch Vise squarely across the back and shoulder before his barrier could react. He was hurled sideways into the table, the cleaver tearing from his hand and clattering across the floor while stone cracked beneath the impact.

Mira stared through the open doorway as if she no longer trusted what she was seeing. Arch stood on the other side with one hand still wrapped around the handle, but his eyes passed straight over the man he had just sent flying and landed first on Sio’s motionless body, then on Mira’s trapped hand.