“No. Zemlja do not make epis. They make conditions.”
“Like death makes ration math.”
I look at her, the weight of her words like gravity forcing my attention onto her. She looks away first, but not because she regrets saying it. She does not, and that is worse.
I turn back to the tunnel.
The old passage slopes down beyond the mouth, widening into darkness. I cannot see far. Sight matters less than pressure. I close my eyes and set my palm flat against the inside wall. The tunnel speaks in layers.
Surface heat above. Hollow space below. Old scrape marks. Settled dust. Deep pressure farther east where something much larger cut through older stone. No movement close, which is good. But farther down, faint and thin, there is a memory of rhythm.
Once. Pause. Again.
The tunnel remembers being touched by something that was not zemlja. I press my claws harder, and stone flakes. Sera shifts beside me.
“Kavor.”
I open my eyes.
“What do you feel?”
“Old pressure.”
“That’s your entire answer?”
“For now.”
Her mouth tightens. “I hate for now.”
“You use it often,” I say.
“I hate many things I use.”
Another truth she does not know she has given me. I look deeper into the tunnel. No glow. No remains. No honest explanation.
“We need the second site,” I say.
She does not move.
“Sera.”
“One breath.”
Her voice is low. I wait. The first sun rises higher behind us, dragging more heat over the basin rim. Waiting is foolish. Still, I do it.
Sera stares into the dead hollow, and for that one breath, she lets herself look like someone who wanted something. It is not much. Only a crack in the mask. A glimpse, then gone, and she rises.
“Closest is rarely best,” she says.
The lie is poor, but she needs it. I let it stand.
She pulls the map from her side pocket and unfolds only the needed section, shielding the hide from the wind with her body. Efficient. Careful. Always spending less, even with motion.
“The second sign is farther along the western rim near a collapsed cistern channel,” she says. “The third is closer to the quiet place.”
“No.”
“I didn’t suggest it.”
