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I grit my teeth and rip the shard from my side.

Pain explodes through me hard enough that my knees nearly buckle.

Anita makes a horrified sound.

Blood pours hot down my leg.

“Are you insane?” she snaps.

“Frequently.”

“That was not funny!”

“No,” I admit through clenched teeth. “Probably not.”

I shove the shard aside and force my body upright again. The Vakutan healing response has already started, muscle tightening desperately around the wound, but this injury will not stabilize quickly. I know it. Anita knows it too.

She tears open a med kit with shaking hands while I cover the bridge.

Her fingers press sealant patches against my side.

They shake so badly she misses the first placement.

“Anita.”

“I’m trying!”

“I know.”

“You are not allowed to die because of a bridge!”

The raw panic in her voice cuts deeper than the wound.

I catch her wrist gently despite the firefight raging around us. Her eyes snap to mine immediately.

The chamber around us feels distant for one suspended moment. Smoke drifts between amber warning lights. Choir fire flashes across the upper bridge. Brakk swears continuously while shielding Sira with his own body.

Yet all I can see is Anita looking at me as if the possibility of losing me has become physically unbearable.

Something inside my chest settles into certainty so profound it frightens me.

Not destiny.

Not religious inevitability.

Something simpler and far more dangerous.

I release her wrist slowly. “Seal it.”

She swallows hard and nods once.

The second placement works. Pain burns through my side as the med foam expands and cauterizes the deepest tissue. The bleeding slows enough for movement.

“That’s all I can do here,” Anita says, her voice rough.

“It is enough.”

“No, it isn’t.”