Not with a flare of light or a surge of pressure—nothing dramatic enough to call a warning—but with a subtle, decisive shift. The thin lines along the walls brighten into a clean, continuous line.The hum beneath the floor tightens—not louder, not softer—simply… aligned.
The holding pattern is gone.
We never spoke the decision out loud, but the ship takes my movement as confirmation. The change-state completes as if it has been waiting for the simplest signal: go.
The farther we walk, the less the ship feels like it’s reacting to us in small, curious ways. No testing adjustments. No probing recalculations that make the air turn warmer in one corner and drier in another. It settles into a steady state, systems synchronized, environment controlled—as if the path ahead had been chosen long before we arrived.
The ship is no longer adapting.
It knows where we are going.
The air evens out as we move, pressure stabilizing until my lungs stop compensating for something unseen. Tomas notices it, too. His breathing deepens, color returning to his face in slow increments, even though the tremor in his fingers doesn’t vanish and his cough keeps trying to come back.
“This part’s… different,” he murmurs, like he is afraid the ship will take the improvement away if he names it.
Travnyk’s gaze tracks the angles of the passage, the seams, and the way the light behaves like a controlled current instead of a suggestion.
“Structural uniformity increases,” he says. “Environmental variance decreases.”
Rakkh doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to.
I feel the change in him the same way I feel it from the ship. His steps shorten. His wings draw closer to his back. His entire posture shifts into something focused and predatory, like he’s moving through a hunting ground that finally smells like the truth.
He stays close enough that his shoulder brushes my arm when the corridor narrows—a steady point at my side. Not blocking me. Not shielding me.
Walking with me.
The distinction matters more than it should in a place like this.
The hum drops another register. It does not fade. It narrows, pulling tighter and tighter into a single frequency I feel behind my eyes—not painful, but insistent. A reminder that the link is still there, whether I want it or not.
Ahead, the passage widens. Not abruptly—deliberately.
The walls curve outward with measured symmetry as the ceiling lifts, until the space ahead feels less like a corridor and more like an approach. The light changes—not warmer, not softer, but cleaner. Focused. Purposeful.
“This isn’t a transit corridor,” I murmur before the thought fully forms.
Rakkh turns his head slightly. “What is it, then?”
“The center,” I say, and the word tastes wrong in my mouth, like naming something invites it to wake.
Travnyk slows beside Tomas, listening with his entire body.
“A convergence point,” he agrees after a beat. “Systems would be anchored here.”
“For what?” Tomas asks, voice thin.
No one answers right away. The truth presses at the edge of my awareness without offering shape or language, and I hate that I can feel it waiting—patient, inevitable.
The corridor opens, and the space beyond isn’t vast, but it’s balanced in a way that makes my skin prickle. The proportions are wrong for a Zmaj. Too low. Too narrow. Everything sits at a height that feels familiar—comfortable—in the most unsettling way.
Almost human.
I stop just short of the threshold.
Rakkh stops with me, angling himself into quiet protection without stepping in front of me. He waits—really waits—for my reaction. Travnyk and Tomas gather behind us, their silence thickening as the ship does nothing to hurry us forward.
The hum remains steady—patient—like it knows this moment matters.
