Chapter 791: Outside

The worker who remembered the red steps was waiting beside Vesa when Mingyue returned to Proxima.

He had drawn the two water-control buildings on a piece of broken packing board. One stood beside the old distribution road. The other was lower, closer to the flooded section of the district.

"The steps were painted so people wouldn’t use the loading ramp," he said, pointing to the second mark. "If the water reached the storage shelf, the lower room is nearly full."

Mingyue took the board.

"Can you show Dorian’s people the outside doors?"

"I can show you where they used to be."

"That will do."

Vesa repeated the woman’s original directions. The road name had broken in the middle; the worker tapped both buildings instead of pretending it settled the question.

"She hasn’t answered again?" Mingyue asked.

"No. This is what I kept before we closed it."

Mingyue turned the board until the two approaches matched the streets in front of her. They would try the lower building first. If the steps were wrong, they would have to reach the other before its water rose any farther.

"Tell Alex where we’re going," Mingyue said. "He stays with her."

Vesa sent the message while Mingyue called for two of Dorian’s soldiers and someone who could carry a stretcher.

The worker led them down the distribution road. They passed the turn toward the service yard, where the two guards remained outside Alex’s containment barrier. Green smoke still hung behind it.

Mingyue told the worker to take the farther side of the road.

He had been looking at the barrier, but obeyed without asking to go closer.

The water-control building stood partly behind a collapsed loading shelter. Its roof had remained in place. Mud covered the lower steps, leaving a strip of old red paint visible beside the wall.

Mingyue checked the ground before allowing the others to follow her down.

Water pressed through the gap beneath the lower door. Someone had pushed it from inside until one hinge bent, but the broken frame had trapped it at an angle.

She called through it.

A woman answered from deeper in the room, with someone coughing beside her.

"Move away from the door."

"We’re on the shelves. We can’t come down."

"Stay there."

Mingyue laid her right hand against the frame. Frost ran through the gap and held the water immediately behind the door. She cut the twisted hinge, pulled the door outward, and left the frozen layer in place while the soldiers cleared the broken metal.

Through the ice, she could make out two figures high against the far wall.

A third shape lay beneath the water.

Mingyue kept her attention on the people moving.

She opened the upper part of the frozen sheet and stepped onto a narrow ledge of ice. The water below remained still enough for her to reach the shelves without pushing a surge through the room.

The woman clung to an upright with one arm. Beside her, a young man had wedged his shoulder between the shelf and the wall, trying to stop it pulling loose.

His face was gray with exhaustion.

Mingyue froze the shelf’s feet to the floor beneath the water, then braced the upright against the wall.

The young man’s shoulders sagged as the shelf stopped shifting.

"Let go," she told him.

He tried, but his fingers did not open fully.

Mingyue supported his weight with her right arm while he worked them loose. Pain ran through her bandaged left forearm when he caught it for balance. She moved his hand to her shoulder rather than letting him fall.

The woman started to climb after them.

"Wait until he’s across," Mingyue said.

"I can’t hold much longer."

Mingyue raised a section of the ledge beneath the woman’s feet so she could stand without hanging from the upright.

"Now you don’t have to."

The woman looked down and slowly put her weight on the ice.

One of the soldiers took the young man at the opening. He coughed water onto the steps while the attendant wrapped a cloth around his shoulders.

Mingyue returned for the woman.

Halfway across, the woman looked toward the dark shape below them.

"My husband."

Mingyue stopped beside the doorway.

"When did he go under?"

"Before I heard you. We tried to lift the door together. It fell back, and he..."

Her hand closed on Mingyue’s shoulder.

"He stopped answering. I couldn’t get down to him."

Mingyue passed her to the waiting soldier.

"I’ll bring him out."

The woman did not ask whether he was alive. She held the soldier’s arm while Mingyue went back inside.

The man’s coat had caught beneath part of the fallen door frame. Mingyue cut the fabric free and raised him above the water on a sheet of ice.

He did not move.

She checked him before carrying him through the opening. There was no breath or pulse, and she could feel no life force remaining in him.

His body was whole, and that made his stillness harder to accept beside the two people she had brought out alive.

Mingyue covered his face after the woman had seen him.

The woman sat on the steps with both hands against her mouth. Her son knelt beside her, still coughing, and took hold of her sleeve.

Mingyue let them sit while the soldiers brought a second stretcher.

Mingyue stayed near the two survivors while the soldiers brought their husband and father up the steps.

"Do you have a stronger healer?" the woman asked suddenly.

Mingyue turned.

"Someone who could do more than the people here?"

Mingyue thought of Luna sleeping against her chest, her fingers struggling to hold their shape.

Their daughter had repaired terrible injuries before. Neither parent understood the limits of that ability, but healing a living person had never proved she could bring back someone already dead.

"We don’t have someone who can return his life," Mingyue said.

The woman looked up at her.

Mingyue sat on the step beside her rather than answering from above.

"We’ve checked him. He’s dead. I won’t promise you that another healer can bring him back."

The woman’s face crumpled.

Mingyue stayed until the attendant was ready to move them. She had no useful words that would make the covered body easier to carry beside the living.

When they stood, the son reached for the foot of his father’s stretcher, but his hands shook too much to take the weight.

One of the soldiers shifted his grip, leaving the young man a place to hold the side while they carried it together.