Chapter 20 #2
“Good,” I breathe. “That’s…that’s really good.”
Alex watches me for another beat, checking the glands at my throat, then leans in.
“You smell like wet rock and sex,” she murmurs under her breath.
I choke.
Sarven’s head snaps around. He doesn’t ask what she said. He heard it.
Through the bond, I feel a pulse of pure, unrepentant satisfaction roll off him. He knows exactly what I smell like. He’s proud of it.
“You smell like mine,” he projects, the thought heavy and warm and completely lacking in shame.
I glare at Alex, face burning, desperately trying to ignore the smug alien in my head.
“That is… irrelevant medical data,” I hiss. “Focus on the vitals, please.”
Alex clears her throat, straightening, professional mask back in place.
“Well, from a med perspective, you’re the healthiest patient I’ve ever seen,” she announces more loudly.
“Neat,” I say weakly.
Kol steps closer, his presence pulling focus like gravity.
“We are glad you live,” he projects, his voice rumbling through the link, but he speaks the next words aloud. For the humans. “Tell us…of the heart…cavern. The water.”
Right.
Fun’s over.
I push myself up, take a breath, and glance at Sarven.
“You first?” I offer mentally.
He tilts his head slightly in that Drakav way. “You speak, my mate. The others will understand as your thoughts bleed into the mindspace.”
I nod, taking in a deep breath.
“Okay,” I say, switching to English. “Short version: the spring itself is contaminated.”
I close my eyes for a second. “The heart of the spring is…big. The water comes in from a crack deep in the rock, fills a pool, then spills out through a narrow channel that feeds the tunnels downstream. But it’s contaminated with some sort of toxic algae bloom.
Something’s heating the mountain up there. ”
I turn, looking at the poor women like me who were thrown on this desert planet without having any idea what to expect.
“We can’t fix the source of the problem. I don’t even know if the Drakav know where the source is. But—” I hold up a finger. “We can filter what comes out.”
Erika, arms crossed, leans forward slightly. “With what?” she asks, brows drawn. “We don’t have proper carbon filters, Mika.”
“We make them,” I say. “The Drakav can find porous rock. We have sand. We have baskets. We can build a natural rock filter at the outflow in the heart-cavern. Stack stones to form a cage, filled with layers of firestone dust and sand. It’ll slow the water, trap some of the toxins before the flow hits the tunnels. ”
“Then,” I continue, “we set up secondary filters here.” I gesture at the cavern. “Every drop that goes into anyone’s mouth has to go through at least one filter. Preferably two. And we boil everything for now, just in case.”
Boiling, I push through the bond, adding images of rolling bubbles and rising steam, of bacteria dying.
Haroth flexes a bicep, jerking his chin slowly.
“Double baskets for the water,” he rumbles. “Catch more of the bad.”
“Exactly,” I say.
Kol’s eyes are half-lidded in that way that tells me he’s not just listening with his ears. He’s hooked into Sarven’s side of the bond enough to see the mental models, too.
“What do you ask of us?” he projects simply.
“Stone workers,” Sarven answers without hesitation, shoulders squaring. “Strong ones, used to tight caves. We must move the rock, shape it to Mih-kay-lah’s plan. And baskets. Many. For here.”
He glances at me, then back at Kol, his mental presence steady.
“I will lead the team to heart-cavern,” he says. “I know the path. The pool.”
The pool. Where he almost lost me. The memory flickers under his words like a darker current.
My stomach flutters, but I hold my ground.
“I go too,” I say. “I need to see the exact flow to place the filter right. Erika comes with us—” I nod to her.
“—because I need her practicality. If I start trying to over-engineer this into a three-stage purification system we can’t build, she’s the only one who will look me in the eye and tell me to just use rocks. ”
Erika’s mouth twitches.
“Someone has to keep you grounded,” she says dryly.
Kol’s gaze snaps to her.
It’s sharp. Sudden. He looks at Erika, really looks at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Not just as one of the human charges, but as a force in her own right.
His brow tightens, and I swear his glow flares just a fraction.
“Dangerous,” he rumbles, his voice vibrating the air. “The…deep tunnels are…not for...soft things.”
Erika doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look away. She just lifts her chin and holds the clan leader’s stare with cool, unimpressed confidence.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not soft,” she says evenly.
The air between them suddenly feels very, very thick.
Kol stares at her for a heartbeat longer than necessary, his nostrils flaring as he inhales. Then he gives a single, sharp jerk of his chin.
“Go,” he orders, his voice rougher than before.
Haroth grunts. “I will stay here,” he says. “Guard the sick females.”
“Good,” Kol says. He falls silent, thinking.
Around us, the rest of the cavern hums anxiously. Thirsty women shift their weight, glance from face to face, to the dwindling waterskins, to the cracked lips of their friends.
Urgency presses into my ribcage like somebody’s foot.
I catch Tina’s gaze as she exits the sick bay to lean on the wall just outside it. She looks pale, but she raises a thumbs up in a shaky half-salute.
I give her a thumbs-up before Kol’s voice pulls me back.
“We try this,” he says, decision dropping into the space like a stone. Relief ripples through the room. “Sarven leads the stone team. Mih-kay-lah and Eh-ree-kah go. We send six more Drakav to move rock and guard. Haroth commands here. Zan—”
“Yes, dra-dam,” Zan answers, arms still crossed.
“You watch for more sickness,” Kol says. “And for the rival clan.”
The word rival sparks a separate, sharper thread of tension through the group.
Haroth’s nostrils flare. Zan’s jaw clenches.
Kol’s eyes cut to me.
“You saw someone,” he says, his focus in the mindspace like being under a spotlight. “In the mist.”
How did he…? I don’t bother asking how he knows. I’m learning fast: in the mindspace, thoughts bleed. Secrets don’t really exist here, especially not when they come with this much fear attached. My memory of the face in the crack must be radiating off me like heat.
I nod, feeling Sarven’s unease spike in time with my own.
“Far,” I say. “High up through a crack. I didn’t recognize him. Sarven thinks it’s Lucek’s clan.”
I let the image of that distant figure rise again, sharing it with Kol, with Sarven, with anyone in the immediate mental splash zone.
A low murmur goes through the mindspace.
Kol’s face hardens.
“They have not stepped in our valley for many orbits,” he says. “If they send scouts now…”
Kol’s gaze swings back to Sarven and me.
“Go fast,” he says. “Make the water safe, but keep your eyes open. If you see a rival, you do not fight. You run. Bring word back.”
Sarven’s instinctive flare of fight slams into that order like a wave hitting rock. He bristles.
“Run from a rival?” he protests. “Dra-dam—”
Kol raises a claw, stopping the protest and silencing the mindspace all at once.
“I have many who can swing a spear,” he projects. “Not many who can make poison water drinkable. We do not throw spears with hands we need to heal, hm?”
A few of the Drakav push amusement through. Sarven releases a slow breath.
“Yes, dra-dam,” he says, bowing his head.
Zan still hasn’t unclenched.
His eyes flick over me like he’s assessing, measuring, maybe still not entirely convinced about the human girl who showed up and started tinkering with their resources. But there’s relief there too, and something like an apology he’ll never put into words.
“Don’t die,” he mutters.
“Wouldn’t dare,” I say.
Kol straightens, his decision radiating outward through the clan like a command drumbeat.
“Rok, Tharn, Vorn, Keth,” he calls, picking Drakav from the crowd. “You go with Sarven.” He points at a couple of other strong-looking ones. “You too. We need claws for rock. Daughters—” his gaze sweeps us. “—rest.”
The main cavern erupts into motion.
People surge into action, grabbing tools, hauling empty baskets from storage. Someone drags out old woven frames and starts reinforcing them. A couple of the Drakav pile firebloom stalks nearby, organizing a makeshift nectar station for the recovering sick.
In the middle of the chaos, Sarven’s hand finds my wrist.
“Come,” he says silently, tugging gently. “Small alcove.”
I let him pull me out of the crush, down a short side passage into a dimmer niche where the noise of the main cavern is muffled by a curve of rock.
It’s barely more private than standing behind a curtain in a crowded tent, but it feels like another world after the sensory overload outside.
He stops there, turning to face me. The glow from the main cavern washes his features in soft gold and shadow.
His hands come up to take my face, thumbs brushing the faint bruise along my temple where I must have smacked it on a rock during my graceful tumble.
For a second, he just looks at me, eyes dark and too full.
“You are sure?” he asks, the question threaded with fear he’s been hiding from everyone else. “You want to go back so soon?”
Images flash with the thought before he can shield them: me slipping under the dark water, bubbles streaming from my nose, my limbs limp, his own lungs burning as he dove. The crushing panic. The sick, cold knowledge that he might be too late.
My breath stills in my chest.
He swallows hard, throat working.
“Mih-kay-lah…I close my eyes,” he thinks, raw, “I see you not breathing. My dra-kir stops in my chest. To go back there so soon—” He breaks off, jaw tight.
Oh.
Oh, Sarven…
I reach up and cover his hands with mine, fingertips tracing his knuckles.
“I’m sure,” I say, out loud and in, letting the conviction flow through both channels. “If I stay and something goes wrong because I wasn’t there, because I could have fixed it but chose not to, I won’t forgive myself.”
His eyes search mine, desperate for any crack.
There isn’t one.
Finally, something in him gives.
He exhales slowly, shoulders dropping, then firming again with resolve. His thumbs sweep once more across my cheekbones.
“Then I will make the stone obey you, little dra-kir.” His mental tone turns fierce, almost savage. “I will make it smooth where you step, strong where you touch. Nothing will take you there again. Not water. Not rock. Not rival.”
Emotion hits me like a wave.
“Okay,” I whisper, throat tight. “Deal.”
He leans in and rests his forehead against mine, just for a heartbeat, glow flaring gently where our skin touches.
Outside, someone yells for more baskets. Fire pops.
Duty waits.