Now that the immediate distraction of Kira and Zeyra bickering over him was gone, he had a quiet moment to actually figure out how broken he was. He took a slow, shallow breath, wincing as the thick, lightning scar across his stomach pulled tight, and shifted his focus entirely inward.
He sank his consciousness down into his solar plexus.
Usually, looking into his Sun Core was like staring at a raging, golden furnace. It was always loud, always moving, pumping thick, volatile dawn essence through his meridians like a high-pressure engine.
Right now? It looked like a dried-up crater.
The pathways were completely scorched. The walls of his core felt brittle, like dried clay left out in the sun too long. But worse than the empty core was the absolute, dead silence coming from his spirits.
