I move because thinking is a luxury for people in rooms that are not actively deciding whether to become tombs.
“Pack,” I say.
Kavor’s gaze snaps to me. I’m already reaching for mine. His is closer to the entrance. Mine is wedged near a rib of stone where I shoved it, so I could pretend I was being organized instead of trembling over a glowing plant.
The floor pulses again. It’s not natural. Not zemlja deep. The sample in Kavor’s hand flares brighter.
“No,” I whisper.
I don’t know who I’m talking to. The sample doesn’t listen. Nothing does. A thin line splits across the chamber ceiling. Dust spills down in a gray-red ribbon. Kavor moves.
For a male his size, he should not be that fast inside stone this close. One breath, he is beneath the blackened growth; the next, he has the sample wrap shoved into a smaller inner pouch and sealed against his chest. Not his pack. Against his chest. Protected under one forearm, between scale and leather.
Something in me notices. Something very stupid. I crush it flat.
“The way out?” he asks.
“Same crack.”
“No.”
My eyes cut to him. He doesn’t look at me, but past me. Deeper into the chamber, where the curve of stone drops behind the blackened epis cluster. I follow his gaze and at first I see only darkness. Then the dark moves.
Not movement. Shape.
There’s another low opening behind a sheet of blackened strands. It is narrower than the chamber, but wider than the crack we crawled through. It angles down and left, away from the shelter, toward whatever old pressure has been whispering beneath this whole basin.
“No,” I say.
“The rear passage runs deeper,” he says.
“The way we came is shorter.”
“The way we came is breaking.”
A sharp pop cracks from the entrance seam. Glass biting glass. I hate when the universe has dramatic timing.
Behind us, the passage to the shelter drops another shard. The broken piece slides down and lodges in the narrowest point, not enough to block it. Enough to make me imagine it fully blocked. My ribs tighten.
“Fine,” I say. “Deeper. But not because you said so.”
“Because the stone did.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
He turns slightly, giving me room to move first. I don’t.
“What?” he asks.
“You go first.”
His eyes narrow.
“Don’t make that face.”
“If the passage narrows, I can tell from behind before you wedge yourself into something and turn into a very large cork.”
