“What?”
“Ila says Second Stillness is clearing. The elders are moving. But the ration hall heard.”
My blood goes cold.
“Heard what?”
His eyes drop to my bandage. I cover it with my good hand too late.
“Epis,” he says. “Someone said there’s enough below. Someone said the Council is hiding it. They’re pushing toward the central stair.”
Merra swears softly. I slide off the slab.
“No,” Merra says.
“That word has become very popular today.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“The ration hall is built over old channels,” I say.
“You’re bleeding,” Merra says.
“So is the City,” I say, stepping past her.
The corridor is thick with controlled panic, the City’s native language. People move too fast and pretend they are not. Voices stay low, which makes the fear worse. A woman carries two water skins and whispers prayers into one of them. An old man sits against the wall while a girl fans him with a scrap of hide.
The runner keeps pace beside me. “Ila said not to come unless the crowd turned.”
“And did it?”
He swallows. “They’re chanting.”
Bad. Fear makes noise. Hunger makes rhythm. Rhythm calls teeth.
“Where is Kavor?”
“Lower junction. With Virn and Syin. They’re trying to keep the zemlja from turning under the ration hall.”
Trying to keep the zemlja still. As if the zemlja is a stubborn animal at a gate. As if the City didn’t build itself over sleeping channels, old hunger, buried machines, and every decision our ancestors didn’t live long enough to regret.
I move faster. My ribs object. My arm objects. The world objects. I ignore the committee.
The west service corridor opens into the central ration hall overlook.
Usually, this is one of the quietest places in the City. People come here with tokens and lowered eyes. They leave with portions small enough to fit in one hand and large enough to keep guilt alive.
Now the hall below is packed. Too many bodies. Too much heat. Too much fear.
The evacuation lines have collapsed into knots near the central stair. People press forward, then back away from guards, then surge again. Someone shouts that there’s enough. Someone else cries that the Council is lying. A woman holds up an empty ration cup like proof of a crime.
She isn’t wrong. That’s the worst part.
Adran stands on the lower platform, one hand raised, dust streaking his sleeve and authority sitting on his shoulders like it was tailored there. Of course he does.
“The source exists,” he calls. “They admit it exists. They have seen it. They brought back proof. And now they tell you to wait.”
The crowd answers not with individual words, but with sound. Hope becoming teeth.
