“Fresh zemlja leavings,” he says.
I stare at my palm. Dark. Slick. Rich with mineral grit and a smell sharp enough to crawl behind my eyes.
“Wonderful.”
“You are not harmed.”
“I have worm dung on my hand.”
He nods, wings rising and falling with the motion.
“It is why the epis lives.”
“I can respect a miracle and still object to how sticky it is.”
His arm is still around me. The realization arrives late, carried in by pain, blue light, and the fact that I’m leaning against his chest because gravity and injury have formed a temporary alliance against my dignity.
His body is like cool stone. Hard. Breathing. Alive.
The sample pouch is trapped between us, pulsing through the cloth, answering the cavern’s glow in quick, bright beats. My injured arm throbs. His hand eases at my waist, but he doesn’t release me yet.
Asking without words. I should pull away, obviously.
Instead, I say, “I’m steady.”
He withdraws his arm. Slowly. Carefully. Too carefully.
The place where he held me feels colder. Bad. Useless observation. Throw it into a hole.
I sit up, wiping my hand against dust because wiping zemlja leavings on my clothes feels wrong, even though everything I own has survived worse things than dignity. The bandage around my wounded forearm is red, but not pouring. It burns more than bleeds.
It’s good. If good is becoming a very low table.
Kavor shifts beside me, testing his shoulder. One wing hangs stiff for half a breath before he folds it properly.
“You’re hurt,” I say.
His eyes cut to mine.
There. Now he knows how irritating it is.
“Stone scraped,” he says.
“You did fall through a collapsing passage.”
“Yes.”
“And took most of the impact.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re hurt.”
“No.”
I stare, and he stares back. The cavern glows around our mutual dishonesty.
“You are very bad at this game,” I say.
