Chapter 17 #2
“People heard things through the lower walls when I was little. Not often. Not enough to call a meeting. A hum. A knock. Once, there were lights under the floor after a tremor. Marut said it was stress glow from old glass veins.”
“You believed him?”
“I was seven.”
“And later?”
“Later I learned Marut uses explanations the way other people use blankets. Not to solve things. To cover them.”
Kavor’s expression hardens, and I roll the map tighter before he can turn frightening on behalf of my childhood. That’s not useful right now.
“The wrong rhythm is going toward that blank section,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Under the City.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t maybe me. I can see your face,” I say.
His jaw sets. There it is. The locked door he puts between fear and action.
“Tell me,” I say.
He looks at the passage beyond the chamber. “The pulse travels through cut channels. Not all of them are open. Some are broken. Some are dormant. But the direction is west. Upward by degrees.”
“Toward the City.”
“Yes.”
Cold moves through me. Fear, but not fear for myself. Worse. Names.
Ration lines. Children sitting still to conserve strength. Ila’s hands. Penr’s bad lie. Lysa’s fevered children. People who have survived too much to be eaten by something under their own streets because we are too slow.
I start rolling the map too fast and pain shoots up my arm. I hiss.
Kavor’s hand closes over mine. Not hard. Not taking. Just stopping.
Every part of me goes still. His scales are cool against my knuckles. His thumb rests near the edge of the bandage. Careful. Too careful.
“Slow,” he says.
I look at his hand.
“Take yours off.”
He does. Immediately. That makes me angrier than if he had argued.
“What?” he asks.
“You keep doing that. Obeying.”
His brow lowers. “You prefer I ignore you?”
“No.”
“Then I do not understand.”
“Clearly.”
I shove the map into the roll with one hand and pain bright enough to make my eyes water. Kavor watches. Every muscle in him says he wants to help, but he doesn’t.
The air between us thickens. I hate this. I hate the restraint. I hate the care. I hate that he has learned just enough to make refusal feel cruel.
“You can carry the map,” I snap.
His expression doesn’t change, but something in him eases. He takes the map. I hate that too.
“We move,” I say.
“You need rest.”
“We need to get back to the City.”
“We may not be able to return the way we came,” he says.
“We find another way.”
“Your arm—”
“Is attached.”
“Bleeding.”
“Less.”
“Hurting,” he says.
“Yes, Kavor. It hurts.” My voice cracks sharper than I intend. “Everything hurts. The tunnel hurts. The City hurts. Hunger hurts. Hope hurts. You standing there, looking at me like I am one bad step from shattering, hurts. I’m still moving.”
Silence slams down. Too much. Too honest. My breath comes hard. Kavor doesn’t move. His eyes are fixed on me, and whatever is in them is worse than pity. Pity would be easier to hate.
“I do not think you will shatter,” he says.
His voice is low and controlled. Dangerous in a different way.
“No?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then why are you watching me like that?”
“Because I want to keep everything from touching you.”
My mouth goes dry. The sample’s pulse brightens once. Kavor’s jaw tightens as if the words escaped before he decided they were allowed.
There. Too much. Too close. I should step back. I don’t.
“Everything?” I ask.
A mistake. His gaze falls to my mouth, only for a fraction of a second, but enough to set fire under every bruise.
“Pain,” he says, too rough. “Blood. Hunger. Stone. Fear. The old thing waking beneath us. The City that taught you to call wounds useful. Myself.”
The last word lands like a blade dropped hilt-first into my hand and I stare at him.
“Myself?” I ask.
His wings tighten and he looks away first. That should feel like victory, but it doesn’t.
“Forget it,” he says.
“No.”
His gaze returns to mine. I understand now why that word is so irritating when he uses it.
“No?” he asks.
“No. You do not get to say something like that and bury it under rocks.”
“This is not the place.”
“This is exactly the place. Everything here is buried and trying to kill us,” I say.
His mouth almost moves, but it doesn’t. The sample glows a little brighter. My arm aches. The wrong rhythm waits somewhere ahead. And still, this is the most dangerous thing in the chamber.
Kavor takes one step back. Not away. Out of restraint. A physical line drawn because if he doesn’t draw it, something else might.
“You are hurt,” he says.
“I noticed.”
“My instincts are not quiet.”
“Mine either.”
The words leave my mouth before I can catch them. His eyes sharpen. So do mine.
Oh. Stupid. Stupid mouth. Traitorous, underfed, overheated, blood-losing mouth.
“What instincts?” he asks.
“Survival.”
“Sera.”
“I want to survive. That’s an instinct.”
“Yes.”
“Good. We agree.”
“No.”
I bare my teeth. “There it is.”
He steps closer again. One step. The air changes.
Not warmer. He’s not warm. He’s cool stone, mineral shadow, and controlled strength. But everything in me recognizes the shift like a storm under glass.
“You are afraid of me,” he says.
I almost laugh, but it comes out thin.
“No.”
His eyes hold mine.
“You should be,” he says, voice low.
There’s the predator. There’s the red edge I saw when blood ran down my arm. There’s the male who could break stone with one hand and still set a water skin between us like neutral ground.
I should be afraid. I am. Not of him hurting me. That would be simple. I am afraid he will not. I am afraid he will keep stopping. Keep listening. Keep learning the exact shape of my no until the yes inside me has nowhere left to hide.
I am afraid he will become safe. I am afraid I will want more.
The thought is so sharp I forget to breathe and Kavor sees. His face changes.
“Sera.”
“No.”
His entire body stills. Good. No. Not good. Because this no is not for him. It’s for me.
I step back. One step. The wall catches my shoulder. Pain flashes down my wounded arm, and Kavor moves before he can stop himself. I lift my good hand and he stops. The obedience hurts.
“I’m not yours,” I say.
His eyes go dark.
“I know.”
The answer is immediate. Too immediate. It should make this easier. It doesn’t.
“I’m not your responsibility.”
His jaw flexes. “You are injured because you protected the sample.”
“I’m injured because I chose to move.”
“You moved for me,” he says.
“I moved for the sample.”
His gaze drops to the pouch then back.
“For the City,” I say.
“Yes.”
“For everyone waiting above us who doesn’t know the ground under them may be waking up hungry.”
“Yes.”
“Not for you.”
A lie. Not entirely. The worst lies always keep one foot in truth and Kavor hears that footstep, but he doesn’t call it out. That hurts.
“I know,” he says.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You look at me like—”
I stop. He waits. He always waits, damn him.
“Like what?” he asks when I continue not responding.
Like I matter apart from use. Like my hunger offends you personally. Like my blood has rewritten the world. Like you could make wanting feel less like theft.
“Like you think I belong to you,” I say instead.
His face hardens, but not with anger. With pain. It’s gone fast, but I see it.
“You do not,” he says, his voice rough.
“I know that.”
“No.” He steps back again, farther this time, both hands open at his sides. “Wanting you safe does not make you belong to me.”
My chest tightens.
“You do not belong to me because your blood woke the epis. You do not belong to me because I hear your breath before my own. You do not belong to me because every instinct I have has begun turning toward you.” The tunnel seems to narrow around us.
He swallows once. Hard. “I am the danger if I forget that.”
I cannot move. I cannot speak. My body has become a door with something huge pressing against the other side.
Kavor’s voice drops.
“No. Not mine. Not unless you choose it.”
The words move through me like the first cool draft after heatstroke. Not soft. Not gentle. Necessary. I should feel relieved, and I do.
That is the problem. Relief leaves space behind it. Want moves into that space. I look away before he sees too much, but it is too late. He sees. Damn him, he always sees.
The wrong rhythm pulses in the distance. Once. Pause. Again. The sample answers with a faint blue beat. I clutch my injured arm against my ribs.
“We need to move,” I say.
My voice is almost steady. Almost. Kavor inclines his head. He doesn’t touch me or argue. He does not claim the thing he has just refused to take. He only picks up my pack, the map, and the sample, carrying too much because I let him.
Because I chose it. That is different. That is dangerous.
We turn toward the westward passage, toward the blank place on the map, toward the old structures under the City. Kavor walks beside me. Not ahead. Not behind. Beside.
And now I know exactly why that is worse.