Chapter 21 #2
Haroth is already moving, releasing water from the skins into large stone pots. But he moves with a strange hesitation, his usual confidence gone. He sets the first pot onto the central fire, but his claws linger on the rim, as if he wants to pull it back.
Around the circle, the other Drakav tense.
And then I realize…
To them, this is sacrilege. Water is life. Fire consumes water. Watching the steam rise, seeing precious moisture vanish into the air, goes against every survival instinct they have.
“It feels… wrong,” Haroth projects, watching the first bubbles break the surface. “To burn the water. To let it fly away.”
“It’s not flying away,” I say, projecting the thought as clearly as I can to the group. “The heat is fighting the sickness. Think of it like… cauterizing a wound. We lose a little water to save the rest.”
It’s a lie. Boiling doesn’t work exactly like cauterization, but the metaphor lands. The tension in the room eases just a fraction. They don’t like it, but they understand fighting.
When the first pot reaches a full, rolling boil, the Drakav lean forward in unison, staring at the violent, bubbling surface with a mixture of horror and fascination. They treat it like a volatile chemical reaction that might explode.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Alex says, stepping in. “Kill the heat. I don’t want anyone burning their mouths trying to gulp salvation.”
Kol eyes the bubbling pot warily. But I can tell he trusts us. Without so much as a piece of sinew to protect his hands, he lifts the pot off the flame and sets it aside to cool, treating the vessel as if it contains liquid fire.
The first bowls of boiled, newly filtered water go to the sick bay, where the sickest lie.
Tina is sitting up inside when I enter. She looks up as I approach with a carefully cooled bowl.
“Brought you the good stuff,” I say, kneeling at her side.
She eyes it as if it might sprout teeth. “That from Murder Spring?”
“Adjacent,” I say. “Post-murder mitigation.”
“Reassuring,” she mutters, but her fingers are already reaching. Sweat beads on her forehead as she takes the bowl, hands shaking a little.
“Small sips,” Alex instructs from behind me, her tone the exact same one she uses for scolding and encouragement, which somehow works.
Tina rolls her eyes but obeys, swallowing slowly.
I watch her throat work, impossibly aware of each movement.
She finishes half the bowl, then sinks back against the wall, exhaling a breath that sounds marginally less ragged than the one before.
“Doesn’t taste like poison,” she announces. “I prefer this genre. Much less ‘Gothic Horror,’ more ‘Cozy Survival.’”
Relieved laughter bubbles up from the humans closest to us; some of the Drakav echo it, even if they don’t get the exact reference. A few of the other sick females reach for bowls, and the cycle continues: scoop, boil, cool, carry, sip.
I feel a warm, solid weight at my back, and even before his arm loops around my waist, I know it’s him. Sarven hasn’t stopped touching me since we walked back into the cavern, as if he needs constant tactile proof that I’m not dissolving into sea foam.
“My smart mate,” he projects, the thought fuzzy with exhaustion but bright with pride. “The clan is safe.”
“For now,” I think back, leaning into him.
Someone jostles my shoulder, and I turn.
Erika appears at my side, a teasing grin on her tired face. She’s covered in stone dust, a smudge of firebloom dust across her cheek, looking like a glorious, grumpy chimney sweep.
“Don’t say I never let you have any field wins,” she says dryly.
“You didn’t let me,” I point out. “I dragged you along for rock-carrying duty and you complained the whole way.”
She huffs. “Semantics. We moved the rocks. The water is flowing. I’m taking partial credit.”
“Take it,” I say. “You earned it.”
A shadow falls over us.
Kol drifts over, his attention dividing: half on the water being boiled, half on us. But as he stops, his gaze doesn’t land on me.
It lands on Erika.
He watches her wipe a streak of soot from her forehead, his eyes tracking the movement with a terrifying kind of focus. It’s not the polite nod of a leader to a subordinate. It’s the look a predator gives to something that surprisingly fought back.
“You lifted heavy stone,” Kol thinks, his mental tone low.
Erika stiffens, looking up at him. “Did you say something?”
Most people shrink under the dra-dam’s stare. Erika just crosses her arms.
“He said that you lifted heavy stones,” I offer.
“I have functional arms, Kol. I used them.”
Kol’s eyes narrow, a flicker of gold lighting up his irises. The air between them suddenly feels very, very charged.
“Many humans are… soft,” he forces through his thick throat, the words rolling around his mouth like he’s testing them. “You are not.”
Erika holds his gaze, lifting her chin. “Careful. That almost sounded like a compliment.”
He pauses, and I feel his presence brush mine, almost as if he’s hearing what she’s saying through me. Ah…so that’s how that works.
“It was…a fact,” he finally replies.
He holds her stare for a second longer, before finally turning to me.
“You have done well, Mih-kay-lah,” he says.
“Team effort,” I say, glancing between him and Erika with raised eyebrows. “Including the mountain cooperating for once.”
Kol inclines his head. “The mountain does not cooperate. We just proved we are more stubborn.” He glances at Erika again. “Some of us more than others.”
Erika must sense he’s talking about her because she rolls her eyes, but I catch the flush rising on her neck before she turns away to help one of the women hold a bowl to drink. Kol watches her, his expression unreadable, before moving off to bark orders at Haroth.
“Interesting,” Sarven’s voice murmurs in my head, rippling with amusement.
“Very,” I agree. But that’s a problem for another day.
Because right now, the crisis has receded enough that I can feel what it left behind.
Exhaustion. Relief. And a profound sense of… belonging.
I look around the cavern. Humans and Drakav are mixing near the fires, passing bowls, sharing space. It’s messy and crowded, but it’s safe. It’s us.
Sarven’s arm tightens around me. He buries his face in the curve of my neck, inhaling deep, not caring who sees.
“Home,” he projects.
I think he’s talking about the cavern before I realize he’s talking about me.
It’s not a place. It’s me.
My chest squeezes. “Yeah. Home.”
“Rest,” he amends, but the thought doesn’t come with the image of rest. It comes with the image of a soft mat covered with furs inside a private alcove where the spoon he carved for me sits on a stone shelf.