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“Not the same thing.”
“No offense, Sira, but you Pi’Rell say things like you’re legally obligated to sound wiser than everybody else.”
“Sometimes we are.”
“That was dangerously close to humor.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Despite myself, I smile faintly.
Then she ruins it by glancing toward the tent entrance. “You should also speak to Ghar.”
My smile dies immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“He worries about you.”
“He barely tolerates me.”
“He does both.”
“That does not make either situation emotionally healthy.”
“No,” Sira agrees. “It does not.”
After she leaves, the research tent finally settles into relative quiet.
The processors hum softly around me. Wind rattles the outer supports. Beyond the translucent walls, floodlights cut pale corridors through drifting dust while distant excavation rigs groan against stone older than recorded history.
I stare at the symbol projections for another ten minutes before realizing I am no longer studying them.
I am thinking about the lower chamber.
About the collapse.
About Ghar throwing himself over me without hesitation.
The memory arrives with brutal sensory precision. The crushing roar overhead. Dust exploding through the chamber. The impact of his body against mine. The weight of him braced over me while debris hammered against his back. The heat of his breath through the dust haze.
The look in his eyes afterward.
Not possession.
Not triumph.
Terror.
My chest tightens unexpectedly.
“Absolutely not,” I mutter aloud.
The projections ignore me.
I stand abruptly and pace toward the rear equipment racks. My nerves buzz with the ugly restless energy that always comes before a breakthrough or a catastrophic decision. Usually both.
The ruins are buried too deep.
That realization has been circling the edges of my thoughts for hours now, growing louder every time I review the excavation maps. The visible structures cannot account for the gravitational distortions, energy fluctuations, or recursive field readings coming from beneath Nareth-Kul’s crust.
