“It is not a game.”
“Then stop playing.”
His mouth tightens before the corners can twist up. Almost. Almost has become an enemy. No. Not enemy. A problem. The kind that waits under blue light and watches you notice too much.
Kavor pushes himself to one knee and looks around the cavern. The movement should be smooth, but it’s not. His left shoulder drags, and one dark line of blood runs where stone tore at the base of his wing.
My stomach tightens. Not fear, exactly, but something that wants to become action before it becomes feeling.
“Sit,” I say.
He looks at me, so I lift my good hand.
“Don’t make that face. I know where you keep your bandage strips.”
“You are injured.”
“And you are bleeding on the miracle dung.”
“Not much.”
“That’s my line,” I say, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he says, holding my eyes.
“You’re stealing my line?”
“Yes.”
A laugh almost climbs out of me. It almost slips free, but I stop it because the cavern is too beautiful, my arm hurts, he is bleeding, and below the City is enough. Enough is a word I do not know how to hold without cutting myself.
Kavor sees too much. His gaze softens by a fraction. I look away. I have to before it touches me.
The black line in the cavern wall saves me. No. Not saves. Distracts.
High across the far curve of the chamber, one curtain of glowing epis flickers. A narrow dark stripe cuts through the blue. It’s not random and not the decay spreading from a torn root. This cuts straight across in the same direction as the old grooves. The same kind of hungry line we saw above. The signal pulse has left a wound in the glow.
I push to my knees. Pain flashes down my arm. Kavor moves, but I point at him with my good hand.
“If you catch me before I fall, I’m counting it as meddling.”
He stops. The obedience hurts again. I hate that it works. I hate that I need it to work.
“Look there,” I say.
His gaze follows, and the cavern changes in his face. Awe recedes, and the warrior returns.
“Yes, I see it.”
“That’s not natural.”
“No.”
“The signal did that?”
“Likely.”
“Likely is a bad word.”
