“Old bad waking.”
I swallow.
“Worse category.”
“Yes.”
We move faster, but not loud-fast. Soft-fast. Committed-fast.
The passage curves into a wider chamber, low but broad, with broken stone ribs crossing the ceiling like the inside of something enormous and dead. Red dust lies in drifts across the floor. Old mineral crust glints under it. On the far side, a rise of blackened leavings marks another old zemlja side passage.
Beyond that, under an overhang of cut stone and natural curve, a dead epis bed hangs from the wall. This one is larger than the first chamber. Much larger. It should be beautiful, but it’s not.
Black strands hang like curtains. Some still show faint purple at the base, but the tips are dead-dark. Ash-gray residue streaks the mineral veins. The wrong rhythm rolls once more through the floor, and the entire bed shivers. My stomach twists.
“There’s the third site,” I say.
Kavor says nothing. He doesn’t need to. We found the pattern. The first place had everything but no glow. The second had ash-gray and black veins. The living chamber gave us a sample, then died. This one is dying too. No. Not dying. Being drained.
Kavor crosses toward the bed. I catch his wrist. He looks back. My hand is on him again. I should let go. I don’t.
“Don’t touch it yet,” I say.
He looks from my hand to my face.
“Why?”
“Because you’re angry.”
The chamber is quiet around us. Even the rhythm seems to be waiting for his answer. His jaw shifts once.
“Yes.”
That’s all. Yes. No denial. No growl. No wounded pride pretending to be strategy. Progress is a strange creature. It never arrives wearing the clothes I expect.
“You said this chamber is old Tajss,” I say.
“The cut stone is.”
“And old Tajss burned because of epis.”
“Yes.”
“And now something is pulling from the epis through the old stone.”
His eyes change. I feel the moment he follows the thought. Not because he missed it. Because hearing me say it gives the thought shape outside his own fear. The sample pouch pulses against his chest. Blue. Weak. Fading.
“Show me the lines,” I say.
He turns his hand beneath mine, guiding.
We crouch near the wall, not too close to the dead bed. Kavor points to the cut groove, then to another hidden beneath mineral crust, then to a third that curves down toward the floor.
The lines do not go to the epis exactly. They run under it and around it. Through the stone beneath the old leavings. Like roots. No. Like veins. No. Like channels. My mouth goes dry.
“Not natural,” I say.
“No.”
