“Another branch is opening,” he says.
“I know.”
His eyes sharpen. “You can feel it.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I close my eyes. The glow under my skin pulls. The floor hums.
The system spreads beneath the ration hall, yes, but another pulse reaches east and lower, toward the old intake vents beneath the waterless cisterns.
Not the nursery. Not Second Stillness. Worse.
“The west chamber,” I say. Rosalind’s head snaps up. “The proof.”
Adran moves first. Of course he does. Toward the chamber where the samples were stored. Kavor sees. Virn sees. Rosalind sees. I see the whole shape of it now. Adran doesn’t need to win the room if he can take the key.
The floor pulses again. White-gray light races along the seams toward the west chamber. My arm burns blue. Kavor’s hand tightens around mine.
This time, when he moves, I move with him. We run for the proof.
31
KAVOR
Adran runs for the proof.
Sera runs beside me.
The ration hall blurs around us in heat, dust, and voices. The evacuation line falters, then moves again because Sera shouts at it without turning her head. Children first. Elders next. Injured after. Even now, even hurt, even with my hand wrapped around hers, part of her mind still holds the City’s shape.
But she is not only City.
She said it in front of them all. She chose me in front of them all.
I have no space for the force of that. Not while white-gray light races through the seams toward the west chamber. Not while the old system reaches for the proof like a predator scenting blood. Not while Adran and his guards are ahead of us, moving too fast toward everything we have worked to protect.
Later, I will kneel before that truth.
Now I run.
Virn reaches the side corridor before us, wings half-open to block the panicking flow of bodies. Syin is already moving from the lower junction, claws striking sparks from stone. Rosalind shouts orders behind us, her voice cutting through the ration hall like a blade through cloth.
“Seal the north line! Keep them moving!”
Sera’s hand tightens in mine. I look down once. She is too pale. Too much pain around her mouth. Too much blue trying to leak through the bandage. Still running.
Mine. Chosen.
I hold the truer word like a weapon.
The west chamber door is open. It should not be.
The guard outside kneels on one knee, alive, dazed, clutching his head. Adran’s other guard stands inside the threshold with a blade drawn, not against enemies, but against anyone who might stop Adran from reaching the table.
A bad choice. Virn hits him first.
