Above, people are alive enough to panic. The passage widens just enough for me to set Sera down against the wall. I do not want to. But I must. She needs breath. I need control.
I lower her carefully, keeping one hand behind her head until she is seated. Her face is too pale under the dust. Her lips have lost color. The blue beneath her bandage pulses more slowly now, but deeper.
“Kavor,” she says.
“I am here.”
“You look…”
She trails off. No word for it. I know what I look like.
Teeth. Horns. Red eyes. Blood on scales. Burned hand. Wings half-spread in a passage too small for them. A male held together by a single thread.
I step back. Her fingers catch mine. My whole body locks.
“Don’t,” she says.
One word. Soft. Not a command. A request. It nearly brings me to my knees.
“I am not safe enough this close to you,” I say.
Her eyes sharpen. “For me or for you?”
“For your choice.”
She stills.
The passage groans around us. Dust falls. The zemlja moves below. The old network pulses through stone. All of Tajss, trying to rush us. Sera does not let it.
“My choice is not as fragile as you think,” she says.
“No.”
Her fingers tighten, weak but stubborn. “No?”
“No. It is stronger than I thought.” My voice is too rough. “That is why I will not stand close enough for fear to speak over it.”
The red hates every word. Good. Let it hate me. Sera’s eyes glisten. She looks furious about it. Still Sera.
“I want you,” she says.
The words cut the passage open.
“I know.”
“I wanted you before I fell.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted you before the system started using us like a cursed key.”
“Yes.”
“I want you now.”
My claws bite into my palm.
“Do not.”
