I listen. Deep below, the natural zemlja pressure continues, far away. No once-pause-again.
“No wrong rhythm,” I agree.
“Then take the sample,” she says, drawing a breath.
I reach for the smallest strand near the edge of the cluster. Not the brightest. Not the central one. A side growth that has already split from the main root. With one claw, I cut beneath the node and catch the strand before it falls.
Blue light spills across my palm. The strand is lighter than breath. Sera leans closer despite herself. The glow reflects in her eyes. For a moment, she looks younger. No. Not younger. Less starved by time.
I place the strand into a small wrap from my pack, made from treated hide and mineral cloth to preserve moisture. It pulses once inside the fold. Sera’s hand hovers.
“May I?” she asks.
The question is quiet. Costly for her. I hold the wrap toward her.
“Yes.”
She touches the edge of the cloth first. Not the strand. Careful. Reverent, though she would cut me for using the word. The glow leaks between our hands. Her fingers brush mine.
This time, neither of us moves away immediately. The touch is small. Barely skin. It fills the chamber.
Then the epis strand pulses hard. Blue flares white at the center. Sera gasps and pulls her hand back. The chamber answers.
Every strand along the wall brightens at once. Not softly. Too fast. Too bright. A tremor runs through the curved stone beneath our feet.
I close my hand around the sample wrap and turn toward the chamber wall. The glow changes. Blue-purple at first, then darker at the edges.
Sera sees it too. “Kavor.”
The tips of the living strands dim, one by one. As if something unseen has begun drinking from them. Deep below us, the natural zemlja pressure vanishes. The wrong rhythm returns.
Once. Pause. Again.
The epis in my hand flares painfully bright. Then every strand in the chamber goes black.
15
SERA
For one breath, nothing moves.
Not me. Not Kavor. Not the glow. Not the chamber.
Even the deep pressure beneath the stone seems to vanish, as if Tajss itself is holding its breath while deciding whether to swallow us.
The sample wrap in Kavor’s hand is the only light left. A thin blue-white flare bleeds between his fingers, too bright, too sharp, as if the little strand inside is screaming without sound.
Then the wrong rhythm comes again. Once. Pause. Again. The curved wall answers with a faint crack.
“Kavor,” I say.
“I know.”
His head is tilted toward the floor, one hand pressed to the stone, wings tight, body gone still in that listening way that makes every hair on my arms rise.
No glow along the wall. No beautiful blue roots. No purple tips, like captured twilight. Just black strands hanging from old zemlja leavings, thin and dead-looking against mineral veins.
The chamber that felt like a miracle a moment ago now feels like a mouth with its tongue cut out. I do not think that. I definitely do not think that.
