“No,” Virn says. “You are being desperate.”
“That, too,” Rosalind says.
Something in my chest tightens, because I don’t want to like that answer, but I do. Desperation is honest. Ugly but honest. It doesn’t dress itself in duty and pretend the bones beneath its feet are furniture.
“Epis is not merely a plant,” Virn says, folding his wings with deliberate control.
The word plant sounds wrong. It’s too small. Too ordinary. We fight over roots. Meat. Water. Shade. We don’t build this kind of silence around plants.
“It extends life,” Virn says. “Strengthens the body. Helps flesh endure Tajss. In the old days, before the Devastation, worlds traded for it. Stole for it. Killed over it.”
No one moves. No one breathes loudly enough to be accused of needing air.
His gaze travels around the chamber, and for the first time I understand why he is one of the voices the City obeys. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t have to. His restraint makes every word heavier.
“Civilizations burned for it,” he says. “Tajss burned because of it.”
The stone table presses into my fingertips. A plant that extends life? That helps bodies endure Tajss? But also one that brought armies. A plant they hid while Orin shakes with fever and Jessa’s baby mouths at nothing.
Heat blooms behind my eyes, ugly and bright. Not hope this time. Anger.
“You knew,” I say.
The words are out before I can catch them. Every face turns. I should lower my eyes. Apologize. Make myself useful again. I don’t. I can’t.
I look at Adran first because he’s human. Because he’s ours. Because betrayal always reaches for the nearest familiar throat.
“You knew there was something that could help us endure this planet,” I say. “And you let us starve.”
Adran doesn’t flinch, which almost makes it worse.
“I knew there was something that could draw a war to us.”
“Or save the fever row,” I counter.
“Or kill every child in it when armies come for the source,” he says.
I snap my mouth shut, not because I agree. Because the horror is too large to answer quickly.
“This is why it wasn’t spoken,” Syin says, his gaze cutting through me.
“No,” Rosalind says. “This is why it has to be.”
“Enough philosophy. If this thing is so dangerous, why name it now?” Ila’s voice cuts through the chamber, thin and sharp.
Rosalind looks at Virn, then Adran, then the Cavern Zmaj. The dusk-scaled warrior lifts his head.
Something in the room changes before he speaks. Maybe it’s the way the Zmaj notice him. Maybe it’s the way even Syin’s attention catches, unwilling but immediate. Maybe it’s only my own body, traitorous and hungry, and far too aware of bronze-gold eyes in a room full of hard choices.
His gaze moves over the table, over the slate, over the columns of starving people. Then to me. Only for a breath. But enough to steal one from me.
“It may be close enough to reach,” he says.
The room doesn’t fill with hope. It fills with fear.
Marut’s suspicion sharpens. Dannel straightens. Ila’s fingers curl against the stone. Virn’s wings go tight again, and Syin narrows his eyes and draws a breath so sharp it sounds like a hiss.
I don’t understand, but Rosalind does. Her shoulders shift as if she’s been waiting for those words and dreading them at the same time.
