“Too much.”
“Move it?”
“Maybe.”
“Banned word.”
“Necessary word.”
The zemlja pressure rolls through the floor. Closer.
A deep body moving through old tunnels beneath the reservoir. Not breaching yet, but the channels are guiding it around. Positioning. No. Not around. Under. The machine wants the zemlja beneath the source.
Why?
To crack it open? To expose more epis? To force the City to flee? To erase the evidence? All answers are bad. Sera reaches toward the curtain of epis, and I catch her wrist gently. She looks at my hand. Then at me.
“The roots reacted to me,” she says.
“Yes.”
“They may move.”
“They may also wake the system more.”
“Everything wakes the system more.”
“Sera.”
“We need the exit.”
I release her wrist. The hardest thing I have done in this cavern. She steps toward the curtain. The healthy strands brighten before she touches them.
Soft. Curious. Hungry? No. I do not think so.
But hunger is not always cruel. Sometimes hunger is simply need reaching. Sera lifts her good hand. Her fingers tremble. She looks back once. At me. Not asking permission. Asking if I am there. I am. Always.
She touches the lightest strand. The curtain ripples.
Blue pulses through the growth, down into the blackened lower roots, then back up again. Her bandage flares, and the sample answers from my chest.
Sera gasps. I step forward.
She shakes her head hard. “No.”
I stop.
Her teeth grit. “Open.”
The word is not command. Not magic. It is need. Choice. The epis curtain parts. Not wide, but enough.
The blackened roots at the bottom twitch, trying to follow the movement. I slash one away before it touches her boot. The severed end curls, white-gray at the center. Sera stumbles.
I catch her now because she is falling, and that is not choice. That is gravity. Her body hits mine, too light, too hot, too alive.
“Enough,” I say.
“For once, I agree.”
