No one moves fast enough. The shaft pulses. Once. Pause. Again. The west wall cracks.
“Move,” Virn says, shoving the blackened sample box into Syin’s hands.
Syin snarls, but he moves.
Adran is still staring into the light. Whatever he thought he could control has opened its eye and looked back. I would enjoy that more if the floor weren’t trying to turn Kavor and me into a mechanism.
The bond-line tightens and I gasp. Kavor’s hand opens at once, offering release. Even now. Even with the system pulling. Even with the floor breaking beneath us. He gives me a way out. That almost breaks me.
“No,” I say. His eyes snap to mine. I hold on. Not because the system wants it. Because I do. “We move together.”
His face changes, and for half a breath all the noise fades. The chamber. The shouting. The impossible throat opening in the floor.
Only him.
Only the male who could have taken and didn’t. Who could have followed and didn’t. Who held himself still while I learned the shape of my own wanting.
The shaft pulses again. The bond-line jerks us toward the opening.
Kavor digs his claws into the stone, dragging me back with him. Pain tears across his face. White-gray light races up from the shaft and wraps around our joined hands, bright threads trying to twist us into position.
Into a key. Into a tool.
“No,” Kavor growls.
The word shakes through my bones. But the system does not understand no. That is the problem with machines. And governments. And hunger. They understand function. They understand pressure. They understand what can be opened. Not what chooses.
“We can’t fight it like this,” I say.
Kavor’s gaze cuts to me. The red waits in his eyes. So does fear. Not of the system. Of himself.
“I know that look,” I say.
“Sera.”
“No. Don’t start. I know where we are. I know what it wants. I know this is exactly the wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything.”
The floor drops another inch beneath the far side of the room. Rosalind shouts for everyone to back out.
Virn and Syin are clearing the door. Merra appears in the corridor, shouting something furious about patients and death wishes. Ila is behind her, face white.
Adran moves toward the shaft. Of course he does. Kavor sees him too.
“Virn,” Kavor snarls.
Virn catches Adran by the back of his coat and throws him away from the opening. Adran hits the wall and stays there, stunned.
One problem down. Thousands to go.
The bond-line pulls again. This time it drags us both one step toward the throat. I feel the system below us. Not in words. In shape.
It wants the completed bond. The living bridge. Human blood touched by epis, Zmaj burned by anchor, mate resonance strong enough to wake old channels. It wants us joined because joined means signal. Joined means access. Joined means the lock turns.
It doesn’t care if we choose. It only cares that we fit. My stomach twists.
“I hate this,” I whisper.
Kavor’s hand tightens around mine. “Yes.”
