---
Every time you bleed, she had said.
The words still rang faintly along the Soul Road, like a bell Kai had no idea how to stop from humming.
The egg chamber had settled into a strange, fragile quiet. The gold dust on the floor was already dimming as Miryam's cocoon shards cooled, but her aura kept the air warm, wrapping the space in a steady pressure that the stone itself seemed to lean toward. Outside, the mountain's other noises pressed in at the edges – boots on distant ramps, the hiss of water through pipes, the low rumble of a shift change – but in here, the world felt small and crowded and very, very focused.
On him.
On the girl sitting on the examination block with her feet swinging idly, Luna's oversized coat swallowing most of her frame, and thin lines of golden scales catching the light along her ankles.
Kai cleared his throat, more to remind his lungs that they were his than because he had anything coherent to say.
