“Left,” she says.
Her voice is thin.
“Right passage is smoother.”
“Too smooth,” she says.
I look.
Ahead, the tunnel forks around a broken rib of cut stone. The right side slopes gently down, its dust unbroken, its mineralwalls pale and clean. The left is ugly and narrow, dark with old scrape marks and a jagged lip where a body could trip.
She is right. The right passage lies. I turn left without argument. Her mouth tightens.
“What?” I ask.
“You listened. Again.”
“You were right.”
“Stop making that strange,” she says.
“I am not making it strange.”
“You’re doing the quiet version.”
This is not the moment for the answering curve that nearly touches my mouth. It comes anyway. The passage shakes again. Dust rains down. Sera’s feet slide.
This time she catches herself on my arm. Only for a breath. Fingers digging into scale. Not pushing away. Holding.
My entire body knows the contact. Danger. Gift. Command. Focus.
I move ahead, then slow so she can keep pace. I hope it is not so slow that she notices and argues. She notices. Of course.
“I can move faster,” she says.
“No.”
“I was not asking.”
“I know.”
“Kavor.”
“Run soft. Not dead.”
Her breath catches in something that could almost be a laugh if pain had not gotten there first.
We turn through the left fork. The passage lowers, then widens abruptly into a shallow pocket where the ceiling dips in a curve of old fused stone shaped by natural tunnel pressure. A breathing hollow. Not safe. Safer.
The ground tremor passes under us and continues beyond, toward the dead chamber. We are safe enough, for now.
“In,” I say.
Sera takes two steps into the hollow and stops. Too upright. Too still.
“Sit,” I say.
“No.”
