Sera watches my hands. “You know how to do this.”
“Yes.”
“Cavern Zmaj bleed often?”
“Everything that lives underground bleeds eventually.”
“Grim.”
“True.”
“Your people need better motivational sayings.”
“My people are alive.”
“Low bar.”
“The only one that matters.”
Her eyes flicker. Wrong thing. No. Right thing, but too sharp against her wound.
I clean the cut again, then press a folded pad against the deepest part. She flinches before she can hide it. I still.
“Continue,” she says.
“You are in pain.”
“Observant.”
“Sera.”
“Stopping does not make it hurt less. It only makes it last longer.”
I do not like the truth of that.
I bind her forearm, tight enough to slow blood, not tight enough to steal feeling. She watches every wrap, every knot, every placement. Not because she distrusts my skill, but because seeing pain managed makes it less like surrender. When I finish, she flexes her fingers.
“Can you feel them?” I ask.
She wiggles two fingers. “Can you?”
“I am choosing not to answer that.”
Her gaze sharpens. Then she understands. Color, faint and impossible, rises beneath the dust on her cheeks. Good. No. Bad.
The sample pouch pulses between us. Both of us look. Blue light leaks through the wrap in a slow beat. Not the wrong rhythm. Not natural, either.
The cloth nearest Sera’s blood darkens, then glows faintly. I go still.
Sera’s eyes narrow. “That seems new.”
“Yes.”
“Useful new or panic new?”
I do not answer.
“Kavor.”
