Rhazek
No bells ring and no crowds gather in the corridor. No one is screaming that the sky has found them. That is Kessa’s work.
Every person in this room keeps glancing at her as if waiting for the next route, the next order, the next lie that will keep panic asleep long enough for people to survive until morning.
She stands beside the stone table with blood dried on one sleeve and salt dust on the other. She has not sat down. Neither have I.
Syin stands close enough to cut me if necessary.
Orek is with Merra getting his arm stitched while pretending he does not feel it.
Renn guards the door. Lio and Maro have been sent to eat, drink, and not tell anyone the sky blinked at us.
I doubt they will manage the last part forever, but hopefully long enough.
Rosalind touches the wrapped tracker with one finger, then looks at me.
“Explain it again. Slowly,” she says.
I do.
Hull relay broken in the crash. Loud beacon destroyed. Carrier tracker picked up by a kedi, moved through the burn flats, then broken. Blood relay under my ribs activated by the final ping. Dead drop receiver south-east of the crash basin. Partial packet sent before we crushed it.
Not a thinking device. Not a beast with strategy. A chain of mechanical teeth, built by people who expected bodies to fail and wanted proof anyway. When I finish, no one speaks.
Adran breaks first because Adran is built from polished fear and useful suspicion.
“Partial proof is still proof.”
“Yes,” I say.
“What did it contain?”
“I cannot know for certain, but assume coordinates. Non-Zmaj winged survivor. Zmaj heat signatures. Human heat signatures. Possible bond resonance. Epis likelihood.”
Sera goes pale at the last two words.
Epis.
There it is. The resource that the old wars wore as a crown and a knife. The thing Tajss should never have had again. The thing that turns survival into value for people who would strip a world to bone and call the ledgers clean.
Kavor’s hand covers Sera’s. His eyes are not on me. They are on the door, the walls, the imagined sky beyond them.
Rosalind’s voice stays level. “Enough to bring Krix?”
“Krix, yes. Others if they intercept or buy the packet.”
“Zzlo,” Visidion says.
“Yes. And arena houses,” I say. “Old-war collectors. Brokers who remember epis and want to control it before the next war is named.”
Kessa’s mouth tightens. She says nothing. That worries me more than speech.
Virn leans over the table. “How long?”
“I do not know.”
Adran’s gaze cuts to my ribs. “Then you are the immediate risk.”
Syin’s blade does not move, but his attention does. Toward Kessa, then back to me.
“Yes,” I say.
Kessa turns her head slowly. I do not look away.
“The blood relay in me can still answer a stronger receiver. It may draw another signal if one comes close. It may also let us detect one before it locks on the City.”
“You are suggesting we keep you near enough to use,” Adran says.
“I am stating the cost of every option.”
“Convenient.”
“No,” I say. “Accurate.”
Kessa’s eyes flash at the echo. Good. Anger means she is still fully herself despite the fear.
Merra steps close enough to study the salt cloth over my ribs.
“Can it be cut out?”
“Not here,” I say.
“I did not ask you because I mistook you for sensible,” Merra says.
“It sits near vessels and nerves. If you cut blind, it may send what is left inside me as one final pulse.”
Merra’s mouth goes flat. “Of course it might. Why would anyone install a horrible thing without making sure it had an even worse failsafe?”
Rosalind looks at Kessa. “Thoughts?”
Kessa exhales once through her nose.
“No central chamber. No source-adjacent rooms. No public restraint. No metal tools near either implant unless Merra says. No one repeats signal rhythms for tests because we are not trying to impress death with our stupidity.”
Adran starts, “And him?”
“Temporary containment in East Nine dry cistern. Salt, ash, bone pins. Door open. Witnesses present. He teaches us every off-world signal pattern he knows. We set watchers for sky response, not bells. We keep the City normal until we know more.”
“Door open?” Adran asks.
“If you want a cage, say cage,” she snaps.
He stops arguing. I should be grateful. Instead, I am afraid. Not of Syin’s blade or Merra’s hands or Adran’s suspicion. Of Kessa refusing to pretend the choice is simpler than it is.
Rosalind nods. “Done.”
Visidion says, “And if a stronger signal comes?”
Everyone looks at me. The blood relay under my ribs pulses once through the salt cloth.
Pause.
Again.
Kessa’s face gives away nothing, but she curls her hand once against the table. I lift my bound arm, offering the burn, the glow, the proof they need to stop pretending I am merely a male in a room.
“Then follow it,” I say, looking at Kessa. “But do not follow it with her.”
Her voice is ice. “You do not command where I go.”
“No,” I say. “I do not.”
The line under my throat pulses.
Once.
Pause.
Again.
I turn from Kessa before wanting becomes another open door.
“Then make the evidence useful,” I say.
They stare, not one of them understanding except Kessa. She does. She narrows her eyes, purses her lips and shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, but enough.
So I give them the word they need, the word they already made of me, the word I can choose this once before it is used against everyone I do not want to lose.
“Use the weapon.”