Kavor steps beside me. The chamber changes when people see him. Some recoil. Some freeze. A few whisper. Urr’ki curses. Zmaj names. Outsider. Cavern. Monster. Protector. All of it dust under my boots.
He ignores them. His gaze goes to the rack. Then the children. Then the cracked floor beneath.
“Left side holds,” he says. “Right side is sinking.”
“Can you lift?”
“Yes.”
“Can you lift without shaking the floor?”
His mouth tightens. Bad question. Necessary question.
“No,” he says.
I look down. The cracks beneath the rack are not random. They run in a broken arc around the children, following old channel lines under the floor. White-gray pulses faintly in the deepest seam.
The wrong rhythm is here. In the City. Not beneath us anymore. Here. My stomach turns over. The City has been sitting on a sleeping mouth, and now it’s learning to chew.
“Kavor cannot lift yet,” I say, loud enough for Lysa and Penr, but not loud enough for panic. “We need to brace before we move anything.”
Lysa makes a small broken sound.
I crouch. The child who is crying is Tavi, the older one. His leg is pinned, but his chest moves. Miri is smaller, her face turned away, one hand visible under a torn bundle of dried root.
No movement.
No. Not no. Not yet.
I reach through the gap with my good hand, ignoring the way my injured arm screams when I shift balance. My fingers brush Miri’s wrist. A pulse. Faint. There.
“There’s a pulse,” I say. Lysa sobs once. “Do not do that yet.”
She clamps both hands over her mouth. Good. She can break later. Not now.
I look around. “I need wedges. Hard ones. Stone or metal. Not wood. Wood will shear.”
People stare.
“Move!” I snap.
They move. Kavor’s gaze flicks to me. Something burns in them. Not red. Not desire. Something more. Respect in the middle of terror. I can’t look at it.
Penr scrambles toward a broken brace. Ila appears from the crowd, sharp as ever, pale under the dust but moving fast. Thank Tajss. She shoves two metal wedges into my hand.
“I knew it was you,” she says.
“Good or bad?” I ask.
“Both.” Ila’s gaze cuts to Kavor. Then the bundles at his chest. “You found something.”
“We found a problem dressed as hope,” I say.
Her mouth tightens. No questions.
That is why I love Ila, though I have never told her and do not intend to start during a structural failure.
Kavor lowers himself beside the rack. The chamber is too small for him, too crowded, too full of watchers. His wings are tight, his breathing controlled. I see the cavern-born discomfort in the way his claws test the floor before accepting weight.
