Chapter 14 #2
This time I pass far enough beyond the lip to see below.
The passage opens into a low chamber beneath the glassed shelf. Not large, but larger than the shelter.
Stone curves down in smooth bands where heat above and tunnel pressure below have worked against each other for years. Old zemlja leavings darken the lower wall. Mineral veins run through them. Blue-purple strands cling in thin clusters along the upper curve, hanging down in delicate threads.
Epis. Real. Living. Small. Unstable. Beautiful.
I forget to breathe. Not from the glow.
Because behind me, Sera whispers, “Oh.”
The sound is not humor. Not defense. Not calculation. Awe. Pure enough to hurt. I look back.
She is on her knees close behind, blue light across her face, lips parted, eyes wide as if the world has given her something she does not know how to hold.
This is what I wanted. And it is worse than wanting her body. I want to see her fed by light. I want to see what she becomes when survival stops taking its pieces first.
The need is so sharp I have to grip the stone. Sera notices because she notices everything. Her expression closes slightly. Not completely. Enough.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Insulting answer.”
“Yes.”
For once, she lets it pass.
She looks past me into the chamber. “Can I fit?”
“Yes.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Truth?”
“Painfully.”
“That is also not a yes.”
“It is enough.”
She points at my wing. “You scraped yourself.”
“Stone was jealous.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. Then, impossibly, she smiles, and blue light catches it. I am not prepared. The smile is small. Tired. Half-starved. Real.
It strikes somewhere beneath my ribs with more force than a breach. I turn away before my face betrays too much.
“Come slowly,” I say.
“Bossy.”
“Alive.”
“Fine distinction.”
“Important one.”
Her echo of our earlier words should not please me, but it does.
She removes her pack and pushes it through first. I catch it and set it on dry stone inside the chamber. Then she lowers herself through the crack.
Her shoulder brushes mine. Barely.
The passage is narrow. The contact is unavoidable. It still moves through me like warning. She stills. I still. For one breath, we are both held by stone, blue light, and the place where her body touches mine. Then she exhales.
“Committed-fast?” I ask quietly.
Her mouth tightens. “Committed-stuck, if you keep talking.”
I accept it because anger gives her motion.
She slides through the narrowest part. I brace one hand near her hip without touching, ready if the stone catches her. She sees. Says nothing. Uses my arm as a boundary anyway, not leaning on it, but trusting where it is.
Progress can be cruelly small and still be everything. She drops into the chamber beside me and immediately goes still. The first epis growth hangs above us.
Thin strands cling along the curved wall. Blue at the roots, purple near the tips. Some no longer than my claw. Others trailing half the length of Sera’s hand. They pulse faintly, not with the wrong rhythm, but with something slower. Living. Fragile.
Sera steps closer. I catch her sleeve lightly between two claws. She looks down at the contact. I release at once.
“Sorry,” I say.
Her gaze lifts. The word sits strangely in the blue air. I do not use the word often. It seems too small, but sometimes small things are the only ones that fit through narrow places.
“You can say why,” she says.
“The growth may be unstable.”
She looks back at the strands. “Unstable how?”
“If touched wrong, it can tear from the seam. If harvested too much, the source dies. If the zemlja passage beneath shifts, the chamber can crack.”
“So everything wants us dead.”
“Not the epis.”
Her face changes. I do not know why I said that. No. I know.
The epis does not want anything. It grows. It endures. It takes what a monster leaves behind and becomes something that helps others live longer. Sera stares at the glow.
“Not the epis,” she repeats, very quietly.
Her voice has no blade in it. The chamber holds the words.
I kneel beneath the lowest cluster. “We take a sample only.”
Her posture stiffens. Practical again. “Enough to prove?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to help?”
“No.”
The answer hurts her and I see it, but I do not soften it. Soft lies are still lies.
“How much would help?” she asks.
“More than this chamber can give without damage.” Her jaw works once. I add, “But this proves living growth remains. It means the empty sites were not the end. It means we can find more.”
“Maybe.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe,” she insists.
I look at her. She needs the smaller word, so I give it.
“Maybe.”
She nods once, then swallows.
“We need to mark conditions,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Old leavings. Mineral veins. Fused shelf. Side fracture above deeper zemlja tunnel. Cooler air. No black residue.”
“Yes.”
“No wrong rhythm.”
I listen. Deep below, the natural zemlja pressure continues, far away. No once-pause-again.
“No wrong rhythm,” I agree.
“Then take the sample,” she says, drawing a breath.
I reach for the smallest strand near the edge of the cluster. Not the brightest. Not the central one. A side growth that has already split from the main root. With one claw, I cut beneath the node and catch the strand before it falls.
Blue light spills across my palm. The strand is lighter than breath. Sera leans closer despite herself. The glow reflects in her eyes. For a moment, she looks younger. No. Not younger. Less starved by time.
I place the strand into a small wrap from my pack, made from treated hide and mineral cloth to preserve moisture. It pulses once inside the fold. Sera’s hand hovers.
“May I?” she asks.
The question is quiet. Costly for her. I hold the wrap toward her.
“Yes.”
She touches the edge of the cloth first. Not the strand. Careful. Reverent, though she would cut me for using the word. The glow leaks between our hands. Her fingers brush mine.
This time, neither of us moves away immediately. The touch is small. Barely skin. It fills the chamber.
Then the epis strand pulses hard. Blue flares white at the center. Sera gasps and pulls her hand back. The chamber answers.
Every strand along the wall brightens at once. Not softly. Too fast. Too bright. A tremor runs through the curved stone beneath our feet.
I close my hand around the sample wrap and turn toward the chamber wall. The glow changes. Blue-purple at first, then darker at the edges.
Sera sees it too. “Kavor.”
The tips of the living strands dim, one by one. As if something unseen has begun drinking from them. Deep below us, the natural zemlja pressure vanishes. The wrong rhythm returns.
Once. Pause. Again.
The epis in my hand flares painfully bright. Then every strand in the chamber goes black.