The Trade
At a neutral Bridge in Bolivia, Salugi offers Koba back for the seekers standing down at the wake — and the deal they take tears the site apart, frees Koba into the dark, and leaves one of the eighteen too broken to stand in the fight ahead.
Salugi summons Vivek, Siru and Marcus to Puma Punku with caged Koba and a one-time trade: the cat for the seekers' claim on the Guardian Island wake site. Vivek refuses on strategy; Siru overrules him on conscience, and the exchange begins on a causeway of ancient interlocking stone that was never built to carry two active powers at once. The trade is a cover — Salugi's people are siphoning the Bridge itself to charge a black shard — and when the site starts to come apart, Koba goes free into the collapse while Puma Punku's own resident cat, Amelia, is crushed saving the keystone. The seekers escape with their wounded and a broken deal, but Salugi leaves with exactly what he came for, and Vivek's map shows the wake site's signal already spiking to match it.