“Fine. The ominous crack rolled our water skin toward itself,” I say.
Kavor looks toward the seam. I do too. The blue light breathes once more, faint and patient. There is no rhythm this time. Only glow. It’s worse somehow. Quieter hope always is.
“We wait until the heat drops,” I continue. “Then we check outside. If the slope is passable and the third site is still reachable, we approach from above, not through the crack.”
“And if the third site cannot be reached from the outside?”
“Then we discuss the crack.”
“No.”
I raise my brows. “We discuss your feelings about the crack.”
“No.”
“And then we discuss how my shoulders are smaller than yours.”
His eyes darken.
“Kavor.”
“No.”
This “no” is not like the others. Not clipped. Not merely stubborn. Fear.
The realization lands soft and strange. He is afraid. Not of the crack. Or maybe not only the crack. Of me inside it, where he cannot fit. Where he cannot follow. Where he cannot catch.
The heat outside roars in silence. The shelter breathes around us. Blue waits behind stone. I should press. I should argue. It is what we do.
Instead, I break off the last tiny corner of warmed seed mash still clinging to the stone shard and hold it out. His gaze drops to it. Then to me.
“Eat,” I say.
He does not take it. Something shifts in his face.
“Sera.”
“You’re larger,” I say.
“That argument has already failed,” he says.
“You’re afraid.”
The words come out quieter than I mean. His stillness goes complete. I cannot believe I said it. I cannot believe he lets it stand. For one breath, the shelter feels too full of truth. Then he reaches out and carefully takes the piece from my fingers. So carefully that our skin barely touches.
“I am,” he says.
My throat closes. The blue glow pulses behind him, soft as a secret waking. I look away first, because if I do not, I will want to touch his hand. And wanting is still the most dangerous passage I know.
14
KAVOR
Sera looks away first, but not before I see what the truth costs her.
You’re afraid.
I am.
