Sea water hit the sled floor and threw Jiang into the open cage.
Bone ribs caught his harness. The failed flipper stayed inside its cradle, but his shoulder struck hard enough to wake fresh warmth beneath the wet feathers.
Outside the cage, Aylin's cairn collapsed.
As the block beneath her knee dropped toward the sea, Aylin caught the copper name strip with one hand and the sled rail with the other. Her guard cord slid between two falling stones and pulled tight across her waist.
Rian stood beyond the new seam with his tide key still buried in the eastern pin.
Dagna could have thrown her hooked spear at him.
Instead, she drove the hook through the loop at Aylin's shoulder and planted both boots against the sled.
"West block!" Rian shouted. "The second tooth follows the first. Get off the cairn."
His warning reached them before the next pull beneath the road.
Rian heaved the tide key sideways against its spring. The next tooth slowed for a few breaths, though chains kept turning beneath the road. He had started a mechanism designed to finish without his hands.
Hedda jumped onto the rear rail. "Tovin, release the brake. Locked runners will go down with the center stones."
"The front runner is already caught."
"Then free the yoke before the road chooses for you."
Tovin forced the brake hook up with his good hand. His wrapped hand rose toward the bucking yoke, found no grip, and came back against his chest. He trapped the steering bar beneath his elbow while his fingers searched for the release collar.
Another block sank under the sled's front edge.
The left runner dropped into the opening and stopped against Aylin's trapped cord. Her body jerked sideways. Dagna's spear line kept her chest above the water, but the buried cord held her hips against the falling cairn.
"Cut me loose," Aylin said.
Dagna reached for her knife.
The blade could reach Aylin's waist only by crossing the loaded cord. One wrong slice would sever the line holding Jiang beside the cage.
Jiang pulled toward the runner gap.
Dagna looked down. "Your breath has not recovered."
He knew. His chest still remembered Brinehook's drain, and the single fish sat inside a hunger that wanted three more.
The water beneath Aylin was short, violent, and open to air. It needed an emperor penguin, not Deep Lung.
Jiang tapped once and pushed off the sled.
Dagna gave him line.
His belly passed under the side rail. The road seam opened below him in a rush of black water. One kick from the right foot carried him between the runners; the unreliable left folded against the current.
He struck the surface on his side.
Water supported the body land had punished. Jiang used the right flipper for one broad stroke and kept his beak above the chop. The failed side dragged inside its harness, turning him toward the dropped runner.
He let the turn happen.
Aylin's guard cord disappeared beneath the runner and looped around the copper tongue from her name strip. The mechanism had caught her as neatly as it had caught the sled.
Jiang swam to the tongue.
His beak fit between the runner and the sinking stone. Any human reaching into that gap would enter at the wrist and lose an arm when the next block moved.
Jiang caught the cord where it crossed the copper. Pulling tightened it. He pushed the loop down instead, following the smooth tongue toward its narrow end.
The second tide tooth turned.
Stone rolled against his back. Water covered his head and drove him under the runner.
Jiang held the ordinary breath he had brought. He twisted with the current, good flipper against stone, until the cord slipped over the copper tip.
Aylin came free, and Dagna hauled the spear line. Hedda caught Aylin's forearm as her body crossed the widening seam, then dragged her onto the rear of the sled.
"Jiang, answer me!" Aylin shouted.
His safety line tightened before she could reach into the water.
Dagna pulled him around the dropped runner. Tovin leaned over the rail and closed his working hand around the back of Jiang's harness. He lifted while Hedda held Aylin clear of the line.
Jiang landed on the floor between the cage and Aylin's knees.
He coughed water from his beak and found air before his chest could panic. The short crossing had spent only the ordinary breath he carried.
Aylin held two fingers near his breast without touching the covered mark. "Did you use Deep Lung?"
Jiang gave her two clear taps against the wet boards. Aylin nodded at his answer and turned back to the failing sled.
The road kept breaking.
"Sled next," Dagna said. "No one chases the warden."
Rian had left the tide key and stepped toward the black-green seam. Dagna watched him once, then hooked her spear around the sled's rear axle.
Hedda tore a storm rope from beneath the rail. She threw its weighted end around a black iron eye set into the western parapet.
"That eye held funeral wagons through spring water," she said. "It can hold one Whitewake cage."
Tovin found the yoke collar. He drove his thumb beneath the release lip, but the left runner's weight kept the metal bound.
Aylin crawled to the trapped runner. Blood showed through the bandage on her palm where the cairn had pulled her.
"Hold the sled level," she said.
"With what?" Hedda asked.
Aylin pressed her uninjured hand to the runner groove.
Cool Natural Essence spread through the water touching bone and stone. Frost filled the broken groove around the runner, no thicker than the cracks it entered, and held the twisting weight for the next few breaths. Any greater load would break it into the sea.
"With that," Aylin said. "Now release it."
Dagna pulled the rear axle toward the storm eye. Hedda took the rope around her back and leaned west. Tovin drove his thumb again.
The collar opened, and the trapped front assembly tore away with the cairn stones. Freed of its weight, the sled lurched backward on one full runner and the broken stump of the other.
Jiang's body slid toward the open side. Aylin caught his safety line instead of the injured body and wrapped it around the cage post.
The frost in the runner groove shattered.
Dagna and Hedda dragged together. Tovin guided the remaining runner with his elbow over the yoke while his good hand worked the brake. The sled scraped backward until its rear struck the western road block.
Brinehook's side of the causeway held.
The third tide tooth turned beneath Aylin's name.
Her copper strip snapped across its center. One half went into the sea with the grey cloak and river stones. The other whipped east through a narrow groove, cutting a copper warning braid before it disappeared beneath the road.
Brinehook's bell rang behind them.
No bell answered from the east.
Hedda stared across the growing channel. "A road break warns both shores."
Rian heard her. He looked toward the silent bell mounted above his road arch, then down at a severed copper line lying beside his tide key.
Black-green light crossed the cut end and continued east.
Rian said, "The order named the road and said nothing about killing Eres's warning."
Aylin held the broken end of her guard cord against her waist. "My grave was tied to the east bell. Whoever expected me back wanted the warning dead before the road."
Rian pulled the sealed lead instruction from his coat. For a breath, he looked ready to throw it into the channel, but he folded his fingers around the lead.
"I carry this east," he said. "If the seal is false, Eres sees the lie. If it is true, Eres answers why the truth needed silence."
"Rian, wait for Whitewake," Dagna called.
"Your Whitewake is west."
He took the tide key from the pin and ran east after the black-green seam.
The causeway broke between them.
Three central blocks rolled into the sea. Water filled the space where Aylin's grave and the sled's front runner had been. Salt runes went dark on both broken ends.
The grey sleeve surfaced once and vanished. Aylin and Hedda watched it go without reaching into the channel.
Repair would require a new foundation after the winter sea withdrew.
Dagna lowered her spear. The new channel put pursuit beyond Jiang's spent lungs and beyond every human swimmer on the sled.
Hedda kept one hand on the storm rope until the sled stopped shifting. Torren's knot remained at her belt. The recovered return ward remained inside her coat. Aylin's local death cloak was gone.
Jiang lay against the open cage. His outer feathers were soaked again, his shoulder bled into the harness edge, and Deep Lung recovery still dragged behind every breath. The one fish had dwindled to a pebble of warmth beneath his breast.
Hedda looked south, where Brinehook's black cliff entered the sea.
"The winter path starts under that cliff," she said. "At low water, it is a ledge. At high water, it is a swim. The next Whitewake house keeps its far end."
Jiang watched waves strike the cliff.
His chest disliked both versions.