Chapter 27 #2
Rosalind turns to me. “Sit down before you fall down.”
“I’m already sitting.”
“You stood up.”
“Terrible habit.”
“Sera,” she says, her voice brisk but undeniable.
There’s the Lady General. The woman who commanded people through the end of a world and still somehow makes my spine straighten. I sit.
Adran folds his arms. “We need controlled access to the source. Guards. Engineers. Zmaj trackers. A team could be assembled within the hour.”
“No,” Kavor says.
Everyone turns.
Adran’s mouth tightens. “You do not command here either.”
“No,” Kavor says again. “But I understand zemlja.”
Virn nods once. “Zmaj do.”
Syin looks unhappy about agreeing, but he does not contradict him. Kavor points to the map I marked in the cavern.
“The zemlja is being positioned under the reservoir. The system may be using it to crack the source open. More bodies means more vibration. More blood means more signatures. More panic means more death.”
I watch him speak, hating how much I want to lean against him. Not because I’m weak. Because I’m tired. Because the room is full of hands reaching for the thing beneath us, and he is the only one still trying not to take.
Rosalind studies the map. “Then we seal access until we understand the network.”
Adran’s gaze sharpens. “Seal access to the only resource that might keep people alive?”
“It might also kill them,” Rosalind says.
“People are already dying.”
The words hit the room. They’re ugly because they’re true.
I feel every eye try not to turn toward the door, toward the hall, toward all the thin bodies waiting for someone powerful to decide whether hope can be measured in cups. I stand again.
Ila curses softly.
“I need to check on Lysa’s children,” I say.
“No,” Rosalind and Kavor say together.
The room goes very quiet. No. No, no, no. Not here. Not in front of everyone. Adran’s gaze flicks between them, then lands on me with surgical precision.
“Interesting,” he says.
Kavor’s stillness becomes lethal. Rosalind’s face closes. I laugh once, and it sounds awful.
“Not interesting,” I say. “Predictable. I just fell through a floor, and people with sense are temporarily pretending I’ll listen.”
Ila snorts, bless her. Adran does not look amused.
“Your arm is reacting to the samples. The system responded to your blood. The Zmaj says the bond was part of the pattern,” Adran says.
“The Zmaj has a name,” Kavor says.
Quiet. Terrible. The air goes thin. Adran looks at him.
“Then perhaps Kavor can explain whether his bond with one of my people has compromised her usefulness to the City,” Adran says.
The room freezes. There it is. Not her safety. Not my agency. Usefulness.
Kavor moves. Barely. Enough that Virn shifts, too.
I step between them. My legs shake. I stand anyway.
“I’m not one of your people,” I say.
Adran’s eyes return to me.
“I’m City,” I say. “That doesn’t make me yours.”
The words leave a mark on the room. On me, too. Strange. I didn’t know I had them until they were out. Kavor’s breath changes behind me. Rosalind watches like she just saw a door crack open in a wall she thought was solid.
Adran’s expression doesn’t change, and that worries me.
“Then, as a City citizen,” he says smoothly, “you understand why personal entanglements must not interfere with survival decisions.”
Personal entanglements.
The cavern. Kavor’s hands. His mouth. His refusal to claim me in the dark.
His voice saying fear is not consent. Pain is not consent.
Survival is not consent. All of it reduced to a phrase that could sit in a ledger.
Something in me wants to claw at him. Something else wants to run back into duty, where language is safer and wanting can be locked away.
Duty wins, because it always knows the route.
“I understand survival decisions better than you do,” I say. “Which is why I’m saying no one goes below until we know how to block the signal, contain the corruption, and keep the zemlja from turning under us.”
Adran studies me. “And who decides when that is?”
I look at Rosalind. Then Virn. Then Syin. Then Kavor. A mistake. His eyes meet mine. Everything under the City looks back at me through them.
Want. Fear. Choice. His promise not to take. The ache of being seen when I need to be useful. I look away first.
“The Council can decide structure,” I say. “Rosalind, Virn, Syin, Ila for City routes, Kavor for zemlja movement, me for the map.”
Kavor’s jaw tightens. He knows. I named him by function. I named myself by function too. Clean. Efficient. Cowardly. Necessary, maybe.
Rosalind’s eyes narrow. “You need a healer.”
“I need ten minutes.”
“You need a healer,” Ila says.
“Ila.”
“No. I am using my full-name voice now, even without saying your full name, because I don’t think you have one,” Ila says.
“I have one.”
“Then stop acting like a corridor with legs,” she says.
Kavor makes a sound. I glare at him. He looks away. Coward, I think. No. Not coward. Letting me have the room.
Adran steps toward the table. “Until this structure is decided, the proof should remain under City guard,” Adran says.
“No,” Rosalind says.
“No,” Virn says.
“No,” I say.
Kavor doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
Adran’s eyes cool. “You would all deny the City access to its own salvation?”
“This is not salvation yet,” I say. “It’s a problem dressed up as hope.”
Ila glances at me. She’s heard that before. Good. Let it become a phrase. Let people repeat it until hope stops looking edible.
Rosalind gathers the wrapped samples.
“The proof remains with me, sealed and observed by one City representative, one Zmaj representative, and one Council representative,” Rosalind says.
“I will be the City representative,” Adran says.
“No,” I say.
His gaze slices to me. I am so tired. So tired my bones feel full of sand. My arm burns. My ribs pulse. The room keeps tilting when I blink for too long. Kavor is standing close enough that, if I let myself sway, he’d catch me. I don’t.
“You have too much reason to move quickly,” I say. “Ila should do it.”
Ila’s head snaps toward me.
“What?”
“You see too much, and you trust too little,” I say.
“That is the rudest compliment I’ve ever received,” she says, shaking her head.
“Take it or I’ll say something nice.”
She grimaces. “Fine.”
Adran’s face has gone still. Good. Bad. Everything feels like both now. Kavor’s fault, probably.
Rosalind nods. “Ila for the City. Virn for the Zmaj. Me for Council.”
Syin snarls quietly, but does not object. Adran smiles. That’s bad.