This time, the crowd feels it because they are still enough to notice. Several people gasp.
Kavor’s voice rolls from the lower junction. “She speaks truth.”
Only three words, but the whole hall hears them. Maybe because he is Zmaj. Maybe because his voice carries stone in it. Maybe because everyone can see him holding the floor with one burned hand and blood on his scales.
Rosalind moves forward, seizing the opening. “North lines. Now.”
Virn echoes her in Zmaj. Syin begins shifting people with the deadly calm of someone who would prefer biting, but accepts logistics.
The first chute gate screams as it opens. Ila. Beautiful, terrible woman. The crowd flinches but doesn’t surge. Good.
The first children move. Then the elders. Slow. Too slow for fear. Fast enough for survival.
I stay on the platform, one hand braced on the counter, breathing shallowly as the hall empties. Merra stands below me, glaring like she can stitch me together with irritation alone. Adran steps onto the platform beside me. I don’t look at him.
“Effective,” he says.
“No.”
“No?” he asks.
“Effective would have been you not making them panic.”
“They deserved truth,” he says.
“They deserved truth without you aiming it at the hungriest part of them.”
His gaze hardens. “You speak as if hunger can be managed with manners.”
“I speak as if hunger can be used by people who like levers,” I say.
He leans closer. “Careful, Sera.”
I finally look at him. I’m tired enough to be unwise.
“I’m done being careful with men who call people useful.”
Something in his expression goes flat. There he is. Not the polished man. The hunger underneath.
“You think this is about you,” he says.
“No. I think that’s what makes it dangerous. You don’t see me at all.”
His eyes flick to my arm. The bandage glows.
“There are resources this City cannot afford to ignore,” he says.
My stomach turns over, not from fear, but from recognition. I have always known he is dangerous. Now he has become specific.
“You’re going to stay away from my arm,” I say.
“Your arm may be the difference between controlled access and total collapse.”
“My arm is attached to me.”
“And you are attached to the City.”
“No.”
