“Twice.”
“Do not be exact at me.”
His gaze returns to the seam. “It was epis.”
My chest does something painful. Small. Greedy. I hate it.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“Kavor.”
“I am sure it was glow. I am sure it answered from inside old stone. I am not sure what lies between us and it.”
“That’s not comfort.”
“I did not offer comfort.”
“Clearly.”
The ground stays still. The water skin remains between us, exactly where it rolled before the glow appeared. Even neutral ground has developed opinions. I nudge it back with my boot. It rolls half a finger’s width toward the seam again.
I freeze. Kavor watches. The skin stops. Nothing else happens. My heart beats too hard for a thing that is nothing.
“That,” I say, “is unpleasant.”
“Yes.”
“Does it mean something?”
“Yes.”
I glare at him.
“I do not know what,” he says, eyes still on the skin.
“You have a gift for making answers worse.”
“It is not a gift.”
“Practice, then.”
The glow does not return.
The crack is too narrow for even my arm to fit past the elbow. Dark fused stone lips around it, smooth on one edge, jagged on the other. A faint draft breathes through in slow pulls, cooler than the shelter, but not cool. There is space beyond. A deeper cavity. Maybe a tunnel. Maybe it is only a pocket in the stone where old heat cracked itself and died.
Maybe epis. The thought hurts again, so I press it down.
Outside, the heat is still climbing. The second sun has turned the slope into a white-red glare. The path out is impossible for now. Possible only if we want melted boot leather, cut soles, and cooked brains. Which I don’t. Usually.
“We wait,” I say.
“Yes.”
“We don’t crawl into anything.”
“No.”
