“The zemlja is not choosing its path,” I say.
Sera’s good hand closes around the knife hilt. The sample flares once, blue-white beneath the wrap. From far below, the zemlja turns again.
West. Toward the blank place on Sera’s map. Toward the old sealed district. Toward the City.
19
SERA
The zemlja moves toward the City. It is the kind of thought a mind should refuse. Mine does not. Mine takes it apart because that is what I have been trained to do with terrible things. Break them into pieces. Count the pieces. Decide which piece kills first.
The zemlja is deep.
Good.
The zemlja is not breaching yet.
Better.
The zemlja is being called, guided, or lured through old channels toward the blank place on my map.
Bad.
The blank place sits beneath the old sealed district, near the lower City edge, beneath stone that already complains in heat, tremors, and bad air.
Worse.
My people are above it.
Worst.
I stand in the low hollow with Kavor beside me, my wounded arm throbbing against its bandage, the sample pulsing faint blue against his chest, and the ground beneath my boots carrying a message that doesn’t belong to Tajss.
Once. Pause. Again. Not close. Not loud enough. But there. Like a finger tapping on the bones of the world.
“We move,” I say.
Kavor’s eyes shift to my arm.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I did not.”
“You breathed like an objection.”
“That is not a thing.”
“It is when you do it.”
His mouth tightens. Almost a smile. Almost.
Almost is the problem. I keep noticing it. I also keep noticing when he doesn’t touch me, when he wants to, when restraint pulls through him like a cord tied around something with teeth.
No. Not now. City first. Zemlja first. Everything else can wait in the dark and learn manners.
Kavor lifts my pack, the map, and the sample pouch. It’s too much for him to carry alone, but I let him. Not because I’m weak. Because my balance matters, my arm is injured, and apparentlyI’ve become the kind of woman who can make a practical decision without carving shame into it first.
Progress is hideous.
