I jump. The pale seam collapses behind my heel.
“Stop!”
Every instinct screams against stopping, but I do.
A sheet of old glass drops from the ceiling ahead and shatters across the route where I would have been. Sera grabs my arm and pulls me through a narrow gap to the right. She saved me. Again.
The realization is not gratitude alone. It is terror. It is awe. It is the brutal unmaking of every instinct that says protecting her means keeping her behind me.
She is not behind me. She is beside me. Ahead of me. Saving me.
The zemlja pressure surges below. Closer.
The tunnel beneath us is not the zemlja’s main path, but the creature’s turn has woken every weak place. The floor ahead bows upward, then drops. A long split opens across the relief seam ahead.
It is too wide for Sera’s stride. Maybe not too wide for mine. She sees it. Calculates.
“No,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it.”
“We don’t have time for your hearing thoughts.”
“You cannot jump that.”
“No.”
She looks at me, and I know that look. I hate that look.
“Throw me,” she says.
“No.”
“Kavor.”
“No.”
“The rib behind us is failing.”
“No.”
“Your no is about feelings.”
“It is about gravity.”
“Gravity can be negotiated with enough force.”
“Sera.”
The rib cracks behind us. A section drops. Dust blasts against our backs. She steps close, too close, eyes fierce and bright in reflected blue light.
“Trust me,” she says.
My chest locks. Cruel words. Necessary words.
She grips the front of my harness.
