The room tilts. Not physically, but politically. The sample is no longer just proof. It is leverage. Salvation. Weapon. Claim.
My arm pulses again. Blue leaks through my fingers. This time Adran sees. So does Virn. So does Lysa. So does half the room.
Damn it.
For one breath, no one speaks. Then the floor under the collapsed rack hole groans. A deep pressure rolls beneath us.
Zemlja. Closer.
The emergency signal starts again from above. Three strikes. Pause. Three.
The east hall ceiling cracks. People scream. The crisis saves me from questions. For now.
“Move!” I shout. “The east hall is no longer safe. West stair access!”
Penr looks horrified. “The west stair crosses the old sealed sector.”
“I know.”
“It’s closed,” Penr says.
“Then open it.”
He stares. I shove the map into his hands.
“Take them. Follow the old drainage line until the marker with three broken teeth. There’s a manual release behind the stone on the left. If it sticks, kick the lower hinge,” I say.
“I don’t know—” Penr says.
“You do. I showed you when you were twelve and stealing dried fruit from storage,” I say.
His mouth drops open.
“Move!”
He moves. The crowd follows because panic has found a spine.
Virn issues orders to his Zmaj. Adran turns to his guards, but his eyes keep cutting back to Kavor’s bundles and my glowing arm. We have seconds. Maybe less.
Kavor leans close. “You need to leave with them.”
“No.”
“Sera.”
“The west stair release jams. Penr knows the route, not the pressure points. If the lower hinge catches, people pile up and die.”
“You cannot hold this chamber.”
“I don’t need to hold it. I need to keep it from swallowing them before the stairs open.”
The floor pulses. White-gray lines crawl from the hole toward the west wall. The wrong rhythm is here.
Once. Pause. Again.
Adran says something behind me. Virn answers. Ila yells for children to move. Lysa sobs Miri’s name.
The world becomes lines. Cracks. Weight. Timing. People. Kavor. Duty.
