The pool drains sideways into the old channels, blue light drawn through the water in bright threads. Epis roots beneath the surface flare, struggle, then pale at the edges as the white-gray shape under the pool wakes more fully.
A machine. Old, off-world, or both? The distinction matters. There is no such machine in my people’s lore, so this has to have happened after we left the surface behind.
Sera keeps her injured arm pressed against her ribs, her eyes fixed on the pool as the glow flickers. Too much fear. Too much wanting. Too much blood under the bandage.
The sample pouch beats against my chest. Her bandage answers. The cavern answers. I do not. I cannot.
If I answer everything inside me, I will become teeth and hands and claim. I will become every warning my people carved into stone. I will become danger wearing the shape of devotion.
No. Not mine. Not unless she chooses. And not even then, if the choice is made inside fear.
“The drain,” she says. Her voice steady. “Where does it go?”
I force my gaze from her to the pool. Better. Easier to control the surging thoughts. The desires.
Stone. Water. Glow. Channels. Bloodless things. Except nothing here is bloodless now.
The white-gray shape beneath the pool brightens in sections, revealing long angular ribs buried under mineral crust. The pieces do not look grown or carved. They are too deliberate and too cold. A set of nested arms, perhaps, or a pump that sleeps underwater.
Old Tajss structure around it. Off-world signal waking it. Epis feeding it.
“West,” I say.
“Toward the City?”
“Upward first. Then west.”
She turns toward me. “That means under the lower district.”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell how fast?”
“No.”
Her jaw tightens. “Useful bad or panic bad?”
“Both.”
She huffs out a breath that might have become laughter in another place. “I hate when you steal my categories.”
“They are useful.”
“They are mine.”
“I know.”
The pool drops by another finger-width. Glowing roots stretch beneath the surface, exposed as the water lowers. The brightest strands tremble, then flare white.
Sera takes one step toward the slope, and I move before thought, blocking her path with my arm. Not touching, but being a wall. I hate myself the moment I realize it.
Her gaze drops to my arm. Then rises slowly to my face.
“Kavor.”
I lower my arm, but the restraint is late. Still, it is necessary.
“Do not go closer,” I say.
