Syin’s nostrils flare. “You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“Zemlja can change path when hunting.”
“Yes.”
His eyes harden. “You are young to speak with such certainty.”
Virn turns his head slowly toward Syin.
I answer before he can. “I am old enough to know the difference between hunger and a leash.”
Silence follows. Good. Let the word sit. Leash. Every Zmaj in the room understands it differently. Every human too, perhaps.
Adran’s gaze sharpens. “A leash implies a hand.”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“I do not know.”
He folds his hands behind his back. “Convenient.”
I do not rip his throat out. I breathe. I remember Sera stepping between us on shaking legs.
“Sera and I found an off-world alloy anchor embedded in the channel system,” I say. “This.” I point to the wrapped broken piece. “It responded to the wrong rhythm. It was not old Tajss, but it used old Tajss channels.”
Rosalind’s face tightens. Not surprise. Confirmation.
She has fought enough wars to recognize the smell of an unseen enemy.
Virn looks at the anchor with open revulsion. “It was placed?”
“Yes.”
“Recently?”
“I cannot say. It was old enough for mineral crust and growth to cover it. Not old enough to belong.”
Syin’s claws scrape the floor. “Hidden hands.”
“Maybe,” Rosalind says. “Maybe old system sabotage. Maybe post-Devastation interference. Maybe someone found what was left and learned to use it.”
Adran’s gaze flicks between them. “Or perhaps your people are seeing off-world ghosts because off-world enemies suit your Council authority.”
Ila laughs once. No humor.
“Careful,” she says. “That almost sounded like you’d prefer the City to be wrong naturally.”
Adran ignores her. He is good at that. I am not.
I look at him and see the shape of what Sera fears. Not merely a man. A mouth wearing reason. Hunger with clean hands. The City’s need made into policy. He would lock the source. Lock the proof. Lock Sera, if he can name it protection fast enough.
I flex my claws once. Then still. Not my fight to begin with violence. Not yet.
I continue.
