“You didn’t sleep.”
“No.”
“I told you to wake me if anything changed.”
“You needed rest.”
“You needed rest too.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I did not take it.”
Her eyes search my face again. I do not know what she finds. I only know it makes her look away.
“You cannot keep doing this,” she says.
“Guarding?”
“Deciding your exhaustion matters less than mine.”
“I was not exhausted.”
“You are lying badly.”
“I am learning from you.”
Her mouth tightens. Not quite a smile. “Low blow.”
“Yes.”
She looks toward the passage, then back to me. “Why didn’t you wake me when the zemlja shifted?”
“Because it was not danger yet.”
“And now?”
“The wrong rhythm touched the old channels. The zemlja changed direction.”
Her face drains of all almost-humor.
“Toward the City?”
I listen again.
Deep pressure. Massive body. Turning through old tunnels far beneath, not breaching, not hunting, but redirected. Its path bends west and upward by degrees, following a weakness opened or remembered by the channels.
The old signal hums again. Once. Pause. Again. This time stronger.
The floor beneath my claw vibrates with a thin, artificial precision that has no place in stone. It is not natural. Not zemlja. A calling.
My lips pull back from my teeth. Sera sees and goes very still.
“What?” she asks.
I do not answer quickly, because the answer changes the shape of the mission. Because once spoken, the word becomes a blade we both have to carry. Because I still cannot prove who holds the other end of the rhythm. But I know enough now.
