“I’m full of them,” she says.
“Yes.”
The sample pulses again, soft and blue. Her gaze drops to it. This time there is no awe. Only calculation and fear. And something she would deny if I named it: want.
“Can it help the wound?” she asks.
The question is quiet enough that the stone almost swallows it. There. Need, spoken like shame. My chest tightens.
“I do not know,” I say.
Her mouth twists. “Right. Of course.”
“But maybe.”
She looks at me. Hope is crueler when it is small.
“Maybe,” she repeats.
I unwrap one fold of the sample pouch. Not enough to expose the strand fully. Enough for light to spill across her bandage. The blue glow touches the cloth. Sera sucks in a breath.
Pain? No. Surprise.
The bandage gleams faintly where blood has seeped through. The bleeding slows. It does not stop, but it slows. My hands go cold. Sera watches it happen. Neither of us speaks. The world shifts. Not in the stone. In us.
Epis does not heal like a miracle from a child’s story. It strengthens. Extends. Supports life. But this is immediate enough to matter. Too immediate to ignore. Sera’s breathing turns shallow.
“Kavor.”
“Yes.”
“That means…”
She cannot finish. Neither can I. That means epis may save the City. That means her blood may interact with it. That means the gray thing wanted it. That means every secret in the Council chamber is too small. That means she is not only guide, not only route-runner, not only starving human with a map.
No. No. Not yet. Do not turn her into resource.
Do not make the same mistake as every hungry power that ever looked at epis and saw possession. I fold the cloth back over the sample and pull it away from her wound. The light dims.
Her eyes flash to mine. “Why did you stop?”
“Because we do not understand what it is doing.”
“It slowed the bleeding.”
“Yes.”
“Then use it.”
“No.”
Her face hardens.
“No?” she repeats.
“It responded to you. To your blood or to the residue. I do not know which.”
“So we test.”
