“Stone remembers,” he says in a rumble.
The Urr’ki Queen’s gaze goes to Rosalind.
“If the children are listening, then delay is no longer caution. It is negligence.”
That’s the word that shifts the room. Rosalind straightens.
“This will go before the full council,” she says. “Every voice will be heard. Every concern recorded.” Elmer opens his mouth and Rosalind cuts him off with a raised hand before he can speak. “But, we will not wait for permission to confirm what Tajss itself is telling us.”
“No,” Jolie snaps. “No way Rosalind. You can’t?—”
Rosalind doesn’t visibly react, only turning her steely gaze on Jolie who cuts off mid-sentence.
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” Amara says, storming over the top of anything further Rosalind might say. “You can’t send children into the desert!”
Amara’s words hang in the air, sharp and undeniable. No one speaks for a long moment.
Jolie looks like she might explode, fury and fear tangled so tight I can practically see it vibrating beneath her skin. Calista shifts closer to her, a steadying presence, murmuring something I can’t quite hear.
Rosalind waits. She doesn’t rush to defend herself. She waits with the patience of one long experienced in dealing with hard choices. She was the Lady General on the Generation ship. Now she is… somehow… more. On the ship she was a force of nature. Here she has become… a legend.
“I am not sending children into the desert,” Rosalind says at last, her voice even. “I am acknowledging that the desert is already reaching for them.”
“That’s not better,” Amara snaps.
“No,” Rosalind agrees. “It isn’t.”
She turns back to me.
“If we do nothing—if we keep them here, compressed and contained—what happens?”
I swallow. This is the part no one wants to say out loud.
“I see no other answer than that these events will escalate,” I answer. “There will be more incidents and unless I miss my guess, more of the children will respond. Likely in ways we can’t predict. I have no doubt that in the end someone gets hurt.”
Elmer shifts in his seat, lips pressed thin.
“And if we move?” Rosalind asks.
“At the bare minimum… we reduce the pressure,” I say carefully. “I don’t think we will eliminate it, but we can give it somewhere to go.”
“Pressure trapped becomes rupture,” Padraig straightens slowly, withdrawing his massive hands from the table. He rumbles. “Pressure guided becomes force.”
The Cavern Z’maj Al’fa inclines his head. “This is true. The tunnels taught us that.”
Jolie shakes her head, a harsh, broken sound escaping her.
“You’re talking like this is inevitable. Like it’s already been decided. This is my child! She cannot go into the desert. Not… not alone.”
Rosalind meets her gaze without flinching. “Yes, we are.”
Silence crashes down—heavier, weighted with the understanding that no amount of arguing will change that truth.
“What you’re proposing,” Annabel says quietly, deftly avoiding Jolie’s gaze, “is not a journey. It’s an assessment.”
“Yes,” Rosalind replies. “We are not relocating. We are listening.”
“And if the city exists?” Sabrina asks.
