Stupid. Impossible. True.
My throat closes. “The mission,” I add too late.
A lie thrown after truth, like a cup of dust after spilled water.
Kavor doesn’t expose it. He doesn’t step closer. He doesn’t saymine, or yes, or anything that would make the words harder to survive.
He only turns his body slightly, placing himself between me and the widest darkness beyond the ridge, as if he can guard even the truth I’ve dropped.
“The mission is not over,” he says.
Soft. Steady. Merciful.
No. More dangerous than mercy.
I nod once, too fast.
“Good,” I say, the word barely there.
We move again.
The ridge narrows near the old arch. Blue strands thicken along the wall and force us closer to the edge. Kavor goes first because the stone is pressure-cut, and he can read where it might hold. I follow with one hand brushing the wall, careful not to touch the glowing growth.
The epis reaches anyway. Not with tendrils. With light.
It brightens as I pass, soft pulses traveling along the strands nearest my bandaged arm. Not flaring like the sample pouch. Not burning cold. More curious than hungry.
I freeze, and Kavor turns back. The glow moves between us. My bandage answers faint blue. The sample pouch against his chest answers, too. All three lights breathe once. Together.
Kavor’s eyes darken. They’re not red. This is worse. It looks like want with fear around it.
I should look away, but I don’t. The cavern pulses again. Not the wrong rhythm. Not the signal’s. Something slower. Living. Deep.
For one breath, I feel Kavor’s pulse through the glow. Or imagine I do. No. Enough.
“We keep moving,” I say.
My voice sounds scraped.
“Yes,” he says.
But neither of us moves for one breath. Then another. The signal pulse returns. Once. Pause. Again. And the spell breaks like glass.
Across the far wall, the black stripe suddenly widens, racing through a curtain of epis. Blue turns white, then gray. Then black. The corruption spreads quickly, following old channels toward the pool below.
The water shivers. Every blue root beneath the surface flares. Then something under the pool answers the signal.
A shape of white-gray light wakes beneath the blue. Long and angular. Not plant, not stone, not zemlja. Machine. The pool begins to drain. Not downward. Sideways. Into the old channels. The abundant glow around us flickers.
Kavor bares his teeth. I clutch my wounded arm against my ribs and stare as the largest epis source I have ever seen begins to be siphoned away.
The cavern isn’t a miracle. It’s a reservoir. And someone has opened the drain.
22
KAVOR
Istare around the cavern and realize what this is. Not a garden. Not a hidden mercy. Not a miracle Tajss kept beneath the City until someone became worthy enough to discover it. A place built. Designed to hold abundance until something wanted to drink. A reservoir.
