Chapter 63 — Seven Cots

Chapter Content Warning: Serious respiratory illness, medical distress, quarantine, references to death and displacement, bodily alteration, grief, and psychological impairment.

The cloth moved before Mara answered. A thin hand caught the edge of the partition and held it there, as though the person behind it needed a moment to decide whether opening the space would make what waited outside real. The purifier lamp cast her fingers into pale shadow, but Khern recognized the cracked nails, the dark dust gathered permanently around the joints, and the habit of pressing her thumb against her middle finger whenever she was trying not to cough.

Then Mara pulled the partition aside.

She had become smaller. That was Khern’s first thought, followed immediately by shame that it had been the first. Her neck fur had thinned beneath the breathing cloth, the bones along her face showed more sharply, and the coat wrapped around her shoulders looked borrowed from someone broader. A pale tube rested beneath her nose, connected to a purifier jar on the floor, and every breath entered with a faint wet catch.

Her eyes remained the same, sharp enough to find the blood already soaking through Khern’s fresh hand wrap.

“What did you do?”

Khern stared at her.

Mara’s mouth tightened. “That was not difficult enough to require silence.”

He crossed the space before the thought of quarantine could stop him. The purifier attendant shouted from somewhere behind him, but Mara had already opened her arms. Khern dropped to his knees beside the cot and pressed himself against her carefully, terrified that too much weight would break something. She felt warm through the coat—not unnaturally warm, but sick warm, familiar warm—and her hand moved over the back of his head once before finding the base of one horn and holding there as if checking that it had remained attached.

Khern tried to say her name. Only breath came out.

Mara buried her face against his shoulder. Her body shook once, and the movement became a cough before it could become anything else. Khern pulled away just enough for her to breathe, one hand behind her back and the other hovering uselessly near the purifier tube.

“I knew it,” Mara said when the coughing passed.

“Knew what?”

“That you would make my breathing into your emergency.”

“It is an emergency.”

“It has been an emergency for years. You simply arrived late to this part.”

The words were sharp, but her hand had not released his coat.

Veyrun stood in the opening behind Khern. His shield remained in the sleeping quarter, leaving him strangely narrow without it. Brakka had stopped a few steps farther back with Split-Tooth between her legs, while Rath remained outside the medical line where road rules required unclassified visitors to stand.

Mara looked past Khern. “Veyrun.”

He smiled, though his eyes had gone wet. “You remembered the handsome one.”

“I remembered the loud one.”

“Age has not improved your judgment.”

“No. But it has made me too tired to pretend your jokes are new.”

Veyrun lowered himself beside the cot. He did not embrace her until Mara reached for him first, and when she did, he folded around her carefully and made a sound halfway between a laugh and a breath held too long.

“You got thinner,” he said.

“So did your face.”

“My face is excellent.”

“Your collar is torn.”

Veyrun looked down. The purifier cleaning had exposed a split in the inner seam where the fabric met his shoulder.

Mara clicked her tongue. “You traveled through moving stone with that?”

“The stone respected the style.”

“It was trying to bury it.”

She reached toward the tear, then stopped when the motion tightened her chest. Khern caught her wrist.

“You need to lie down.”

“I have been lying down for three route counts. It has not impressed anyone.”

“Mara.”

“Khern.”

The purifier attendant finally reached them. Hessa Low-Lamp had removed her outer guard coat and now wore the pale apron of the medical quarter. Her scarred wrists remained uncovered. She held a folded barrier cloth in both hands but looked uncertain where she was supposed to place it when the patient had already embraced two unclassified travelers.

“Contact was not approved,” she said.

Mara released Veyrun. “Then approve it backward.”

“That is not how approval works.”

“It appears to be how contact worked.”

Hessa closed her eyes briefly. “You came through three Moving Hills exposure zones.”

“So did the report that brought my son’s name here.”

Khern looked at her. “You heard?”

“I heard a great deal. Most of it described you like a damaged tool someone was arguing over.”

“Sava.”

“Several people. One of them remembered to write that you were my son.”

Vorrik’s rope copy.

Mara’s gaze softened, but only for a moment. Then she reached for Khern’s wrapped hand.

He pulled it back.

That told her more than showing it would have.

“Khern.”

“It opened again.”

“How far?”

“Not far.”

“Show me.”

Hessa moved closer. “The wound has already been assessed.”

“I was not asking the road.”

Khern slowly offered the hand. Mara unwrapped only the outer layer. She did not have the strength to remove the rest without shaking, but she examined the blood, the darkened line beneath his palm, and the stiff way his fingers remained partly open. Her expression changed in small pieces—anger first, fear beneath it, guilt last and quickly hidden.

“What did you put it into?”

“The hill.”

Veyrun leaned back against the partition. “In his defense, the hill put itself around him.”

“That sounds like something he would allow.”

“I did not allow it.”

Mara looked at him.

Khern lowered his eyes. “Not entirely.”

She retied the cloth with slow, exact movements. The wrap was not cleaner than his. It was simply hers. A cough interrupted her before the final knot, and she turned away, pressing one fist against her chest.

Khern reached for the purifier tube.

Mara caught his wrist without looking. “Do not.”

“You cannot breathe.”

“I can.”

“Not well.”

“Not everything done badly needs you to take over.”

The sentence landed harder than she intended.

Khern went still, and Mara’s grip loosened.

For a moment, the medical tent seemed to fill with everything they had not said before he left Last Molt. Every meal Khern had carried. Every cough Mara had hidden. Every time she praised him for managing what no child should have needed to manage. Every time he mistook being depended on for being loved correctly.

Mara looked at his hand resting beneath hers. “I did not mean—”

“You did.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

Khern did not know which of them looked more frightened by the answer.

Before either could continue, the covered cot beside Mara’s shifted. A woman beneath the cloth cursed softly and pushed a bitter medicine tube away from her mouth. Bell-Tally Nine appeared at once, carrying their flat bell under one arm and the bowl of broth that had survived an entire day without being finished.

“You are responsive,” Bell-Tally said.

The woman beneath the cloth lifted one finger.

“Yes.”

“Name?”

A pause followed, and the finger lowered.

Bell-Tally crouched beside the cot. “You may dislike the question. The road still needs an answer.”

The woman pulled the covering away from her face. She was older than Mara, with one eye sealed beneath pale growth and a mouth discolored by soft-touch.

“Sovi.”

“Only Sovi?”

“Today.”

Bell-Tally considered, then struck one shoulder bell. “Sovi entered living.”

Sovi pointed toward the flat gate bell under their arm. “Still wrong.”

Bell-Tally’s face darkened. “I came here to help you.”

“You brought it.”

“I am repairing it.”

“You are carrying the problem closer.”

The exchange made Mara smile. The smile triggered another cough, but this one passed before Khern could turn it into a task.

Hessa unfolded the barrier cloth. “The medical quarter is over capacity. Last Molt patients classified yellow are being moved to overflow shelters.”

“Where?” Khern asked.

“Western purifier tents where space remains. Warm-fence shelters where sponsorship is accepted. Ash waiting row for those without respiratory support.”

Mara looked at her. “Which am I?”

Hessa checked the tag hanging from the purifier jar.

“Yellow respiratory. Dust-lung progression. Repeated blood cough. Low recovery response to standard purifier salts.”

Khern’s chest tightened with every phrase.

Hessa continued reading because stopping would make the answer feel personal. “Western purifier capacity is full. You are eligible for warm-fence sponsorship or ash-row waiting.”

“What is warm-fence sponsorship?” Khern asked.

Bell-Tally answered while adjusting the flat bell’s wax. “Care supplied by the shelters beyond the inner quarantine fence. Food, cots, warm treatment, pain relief, and altered-body support.”

“Avaruun,” Rath said from outside the medical line.

The nearby attendants became quieter.

Bell-Tally did not correct him.

Hessa folded the barrier cloth again. “Not every warm-fence shelter is formally devotional.”

“Formally,” Rath repeated.

“The White Road recognizes practical distinctions.”

“The Moving Hills did too.”

Ivoran entered behind Rath carrying three boards and a new useless object tied at his waist. The blue glass shard from the boy’s toll knocked softly against a bent spoon.

“The warm fringe remains under observation,” he said. “Its shelters accept patients our purifier tents cannot support. Their methods produce measurable relief. Their long-term alteration risk remains disputed.”

“By whom?” Brakka asked.

“People who benefit and people who burn them.”

Split-Tooth pressed closer to her leg.

Khern looked at Mara. “You are not going there.”

Her expression sharpened immediately. “I did not ask you.”

“You know what their warmth does.”

“I know what this cough does.”

“It changes people.”

“So does dying.”

Khern opened his mouth, but Mara raised one hand.

“Do not make the argument before I have seen the choice.”

“That is how they trap people.”

“That is also how frightened sons become gatekeepers.”

Veyrun looked away.

The words struck close enough that even Mara heard their echo. She softened her voice.

“I came because Last Molt could no longer keep the sick alive on promises.”

Khern had known there would be an explanation. Hearing it still felt like discovering the route had collapsed behind him.

“What happened?”

“The lower vents clogged after the eastern shelf shifted. Dust entered two sleeping rows. Purifier salts ran low. The medical store began dividing treatment by who could still work.”

“Who decided?”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“People with too few jars and too many lungs.”

“Thread-Seer?”

“Gone before the worst of it.”

“Talar?”

“Still standing when I left. More black in his hands. Less patience in his mouth.”

“Noma?”

“Learning which vents lie. Pella came with the caravan.”

Khern looked around. “Where is she?”

“Soft-touch review. They saw warmth in her old scars and discovered a new reason to count her.”

Mara adjusted the purifier tube beneath her nose. “Last Molt received word that White Road had stronger respiratory treatment. Then a Nhalen rope copy arrived with your name. I decided that if I was going to be counted by strangers, I would at least make you look at me while they did it.”

“You should have waited.”

“For what?”

“For me to come back.”

Mara’s eyes did not leave his. “Were you coming back?”

Khern could not answer.

He had intended to. In the same vague way he intended every impossible thing: after the next route, after the next danger, after everyone around him stopped needing him long enough to let him choose.

Mara understood the silence.

“That is what I thought.”

A warm note sounded beyond the medical tents.

Not a gate bell.

A voice singing through layered cloth.

The melody had no words Khern recognized. It rose and fell with the rhythm of difficult breathing, leaving pauses where a sick person might need longer to inhale. Several patients nearby turned their heads toward it, and Sovi pulled the covering from her good eye.

“She came.”

Hessa stood straighter.

The medical attendants cleared the central path.

A woman entered through the western partition carrying an empty broth tray. At first, Khern saw only the care with which she moved. She never approached a cot directly from behind. She paused before crossing each patient’s line of sight and waited until they acknowledged her. When a child reached toward her, she offered a hand but did not complete the touch until the child closed their fingers.

Her clothing was pale and layered, almost ceremonial from a distance, though the closer seams had been repaired repeatedly. Warm cords passed beneath the fabric along her ribs and disappeared around her back. One shoulder sat higher than the other. Thin translucent skin covered part of her throat, revealing a slow pulse underneath.

She was beautiful in the way carefully repaired things could be beautiful, and altered enough that no one could mistake her for untouched.

The guards called her Mercy Bride.

She did not react to the title.

Instead, she counted the cots.

Her eyes moved from one to seven, paused, then began again from the next row. Seven. Pause. Seven. The final count ended at three, and a faint line appeared between her brows.

“There were four in the last row.”

“One died during entry,” Hessa said.

“Name?”

“Tovan Low-Cup.”

Mercy Bride repeated it. Not loudly. Not ceremonially. She simply placed the name where the missing body had been.

Then she looked toward Mara.

“May I approach?”

Mara studied her cords, her hands, and the guards standing too close to the partition.

“You are already approaching.”

Mercy Bride stopped.

Mara’s mouth shifted. “Yes.”

Only then did the woman move beside the cot.

She placed the empty tray on the floor and sat where Mara could see both her and the tent’s open exit. When Hessa reached to close the partition behind them, Mercy Bride’s body became absolutely still.

“Leave it open,” Mara said.

Hessa looked at her. “The air is bad.”

“It is purifier airflow.”

“It is bad.”

Hessa left the partition open.

Mercy Bride’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.

Khern noticed.

So did Mara.

“What do they call you when they are not asking for something?” Mara asked.

The guards became very quiet.

Mercy Bride looked toward her. “Today?”

Mara glanced at Sovi. “Apparently names can change by day.”

A faint smile reached Mercy Bride’s face. “Nehra.”

The name passed through the tent without ceremony.

Khern felt Nahl’s two chain taps in his memory, though he did not know why.

Mara nodded. “Mara.”

“I know.”

“That is an uncomfortable beginning.”

“Your intake record says you dislike broth when the skin forms.”

“My intake record speaks too freely.”

“I brought an empty tray.”

Mara looked down at it.

Nehra’s smile deepened slightly. “So you could decide whether I had earned the full one.”

Veyrun made a quiet approving sound.

Nehra’s eyes moved to him. “You joke before rooms can become dangerous.”

Veyrun leaned against the partition. “Sometimes after.”

“Does it help?”

“Me?”

“The room.”

“That seems like the room’s responsibility.”

Nehra nodded as though accepting a medical answer. Then she looked toward Brakka and Split-Tooth. The calf had lowered his mouthplate, testing the warm cords beneath her clothing from a distance.

“May I offer him my hand?”

Brakka crossed her arms. “Ask him.”

Nehra extended one hand without moving closer.

Split-Tooth sniffed. He stepped forward, touched the back of her fingers with the edge of his mouthplate, and immediately retreated. The cords beneath Nehra’s wrist moved toward the contact before she pulled them still.

“He dislikes being answered too quickly,” she said.

Brakka’s attention sharpened. “So do I.”

“Yes.”

The agreement carried more weight than praise would have.

Nehra turned back to Mara. “The western purifier tents cannot take you tonight.”

“I gathered that.”

“Seven Cots has room.”

Ivoran looked at the crowded rows. “Your registered shelter contains twenty-eight beds.”

“Four groups of seven.”

“It is still called Seven Cots.”

“The first seven objected to expansion.”

“Cots do not object.”

“Then you have not slept on the third one.”

Bell-Tally, still working on the flat bell, said, “It leans.”

Nehra looked at them. “It remembers a large man who refused to turn over.”

“The leg is short.”

“Memory can be structural.”

Rath’s expression suggested he approved despite himself.

Khern remained beside Mara. “What happens at Seven Cots?”

“People sleep,” Nehra said. “They receive food. They are not separated from family because their bodies frighten someone. We treat pain before asking whether it was deserved.”

“With what?”

“Whatever helps.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the answer patients need first.”

Mara watched Khern’s shoulders tighten.

Nehra noticed too. “You are afraid I will make relief into a door that locks behind her.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The response unsettled him more than denial.

Nehra folded her hands in her lap. “Fear makes people inspect thresholds. Hatred makes them stop looking at what crosses.”

“And what crosses yours?”

“People the road cannot keep.”

“What leaves?”

“Some people.”

“Some?”

Nehra met his gaze without offense. “Some discover they cannot survive without what keeps them comfortable. Some decide comfort matters more than independence. Some change. Some regret changing. Some do not.”

“Can they leave freely?”

“Yes.”

Rath spoke from the medical line. “Can they survive leaving?”

Nehra looked toward him. “Not always.”

There it was.

No lie.

No shame.

Only a truth placed gently enough that desperate people might accept it before understanding its weight.

Mara touched the purifier tube. “What can you do for dust-lung?”

“Tonight? Warm air, supported sleep, thinner broth, chest pressure release, and a cot farther from purifier ash.”

“And later?”

“More.”

Khern said, “No.”

Mara turned.

He heard himself and hated the word before it finished.

Nehra did not interfere.

Mara looked at him until he lowered his eyes. “You may tell me what you fear. You do not tell me what I choose before I have chosen.”

“I watched warmth own people.”

“You also watched cold kill them.”

“Avaruun—”

“Nehra offered a cot.”

“The cot is connected to everything after it.”

“Then we inspect everything after it.”

Khern’s damaged palm pulsed beneath Mara’s wrap. He wanted to read the cords under Nehra’s skin, the floor she stood upon, the route beyond the warm fence, and every choice that had brought her here. He wanted enough truth to protect Mara before she made a decision.

He also knew what wanting one answer too badly did to Witness.

Nehra watched him struggle. “You do not need to trust me tonight. Only decide whether her breathing is safer here or across the fence.”

Mara coughed into the cloth.

Dark blood marked the center.

Khern saw it.

So did everyone else.

Hessa immediately reached for the purifier jar. Nehra did not move until Mara nodded. Then she placed two fingers against the side of Mara’s ribs.

“May I press?”

“Yes.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

Nehra pressed beneath the lowest rib while Hessa adjusted the tube. Mara’s next cough came shorter. The one after that did not bring blood. Nehra shifted her hand by a finger and waited for Mara’s breath rather than forcing it into a count.

The relief was small.

Real.

Khern hated how quickly hope entered him.

Mara noticed. “Do not look guilty for wanting me to breathe.”

“I do not know what it costs.”

“Neither do I.”

Nehra removed her hand. “Tonight, a cot and ordinary care. No graft. No communion. No warm organism. No decision that survives the morning unless Mara makes it again.”

Khern studied her. “You promise?”

“No,” Nehra said. “I state the conditions under which I will take her. Promises are often used when people do not want anyone inspecting the conditions.”

Mara looked between them. “I like her.”

“That is not evidence.”

“It is evidence that I like her.”

Ivoran scratched something onto one of his boards.

Veyrun leaned toward him. “What did you write?”

“Patient preference.”

“You record everything.”

“Not everything.”

“What do you leave out?”

Ivoran’s stylus paused.

“Things the road has no right to own.”

The answer surprised Khern.

It may have surprised Ivoran too.

Mara was transferred near the end of the light cycle. Seven Cots stood against the inner side of the warm fence, close enough to White Road’s purifier towers that the guards could claim oversight and far enough beyond the medical quarter that the air changed before the first bed. The route there passed through two locked gates, one open inspection lane, and a corridor lined with white ash bowls.

Khern walked beside Mara’s cot while Veyrun carried the purifier jar. Brakka followed with Split-Tooth, Rath argued with Ivoran about whether accompaniment counted as sponsorship, and Nehra walked at the cot’s head.

She checked every door before Mara crossed it.

The first gate opened inward. Nehra waited for it to remain open before proceeding. The second had a latch that closed automatically, and she wedged it with a piece of shell until the last patient passed.

At the third threshold, Gatebound Nahl waited.

His chains entered the walls on either side. The raw line beneath his wrist plate had darkened since the gate inspection, and the tiny wooden wedge remained tucked beneath the armor.

Nahl’s gaze went first to Nehra.

He did not call her Mercy Bride.

He did not call her Nehra.

“Twenty-eight registered beds,” he said.

“Twenty-seven occupied,” she answered.

“Four Last Molt respiratory transfers.”

“Three. Sovi remains in medical watch.”

“Then one bed is unaccounted.”

“The empty bed remains empty.”

Nahl’s jaw tightened. “Empty spaces attract unregistered bodies.”

“Then count the body when it arrives.”

“The road counts before arrival.”

“That is why it keeps expecting people instead of meeting them.”

Their voices remained calm.

Khern heard years beneath them.

Nahl looked toward Mara. “Treatment classification?”

“Cot, food, supported breathing. No graft tonight.”

“Warm-cord contact?”

“No.”

“Brood access?”

“No.”

“Communion flesh?”

Mara’s eyes sharpened.

Nehra answered without looking away from Nahl. “No.”

The words were too practiced.

Khern felt the future hiding behind them.

Nahl shifted one chain. The movement exposed the raw skin beneath his wrist, and Nehra’s hand lifted slightly before stopping at her side.

“You are bleeding,” she said.

“It is surface abrasion.”

“The left cord sits too high.”

“It holds.”

“That was not the question.”

Nahl looked at her.

For one breath, he seemed less like a gate and more like a tired man being corrected by someone who had done it many times.

Then the chains tightened.

“The patient may enter.”

No welcome.

No warning.

No name between them.

Nahl stepped aside.

As Mara’s cot passed, Nehra glanced beneath his wrist plate. “The wedge is splitting.”

“It remains functional.”

“It was never functional.”

Nahl’s expression changed by almost nothing.

“Go,” he said.

Nehra continued through the gate.

Khern looked back once.

Nahl struck the chain beside him twice.

Two clean taps.

Nehra’s steps faltered.

She did not turn.

Seven Cots contained twenty-eight beds arranged in four loose groups. None matched. One leaned. One had a frame carved with old toll marks. Another sat so low that the patient sleeping there had built a step from folded blankets. Warm cords ran along the walls, but they had been tied back from the beds assigned ordinary care.

The place smelled of broth, clean cloth, damp fur, medicinal roots, and something softly sweet beneath all of it.

People lived there loudly.

A child complained that his sleeping cloth had been folded with the opening toward the wall. An elderly man accused another patient of stealing his smooth stone, only to discover it beneath his own leg. Two altered women sat near a lamp comparing the places where their skin no longer felt temperature. Someone burned fungus in the cooking corner and insisted the smoke was intentional.

Nehra moved through the room correcting none of the noise.

She counted the beds in groups of seven.

At the far wall, a young Kharuun woman folded blankets. She was around Veyrun’s height when seated, perhaps a little shorter standing. Her fur had been trimmed unevenly around one side of the head, revealing an old scar near the temple. A cluster of smooth buttons lay beside her knee, arranged from coolest to warmest against the stone. Whenever she finished folding a blanket, she checked that the opening faced the room rather than the wall.

A cook passed her a strip of sweet fungus.

The young woman broke it exactly in half.

She ate one portion.

The other disappeared into a small cloth pocket beneath her sleeve.

Veyrun stopped walking.

Khern nearly struck his back.

The young woman looked toward them. Her eyes moved over Veyrun’s face without recognition. She noticed the missing lower-left tooth when he began to speak, then looked away before any word came.

Nehra approached her gently. “Bed twenty-eight needs ordinary cloth.”

The young woman frowned. “Twenty-eight is empty.”

“Not now.”

“Empty is supposed to stay empty until morning.”

“Morning arrived for someone early.”

The explanation appeared to satisfy her. She selected a folded blanket, checked its opening, and carried it toward Mara’s cot. When she passed Veyrun, he turned his head to follow her.

“You know her?” Khern asked.

Veyrun took too long to answer. “No.”

The word sounded wrong.

The young woman placed the blanket over Mara’s legs. Mara thanked her.

She looked at Mara’s face, then at the purifier jar. “Bitter tube goes left.”

Mara examined the medicine line. “Why?”

“So the mouth cannot find it when sleeping.”

“That sounds useful.”

The woman nodded. “I do useful wrong.”

Mara’s expression softened. “Most people do.”

Nehra watched the exchange. “This is Little Warm-Hand.”

The young woman shook her head.

“Not today?”

“Button-Keeper.”

Nehra accepted the correction. “Button-Keeper, this is Mara.”

The woman touched one finger to the cot frame.

“Mara.”

The name entered her strangely, as though she stored the sound without attaching it to the present.

Veyrun remained motionless.

Button-Keeper looked toward him again. Her gaze lingered on his shoulder fur, then moved to the torn collar Mara had noticed. She reached into her sleeve and touched the hidden half of the sweet strip.

She did not offer it.

Instead, she returned to the wall and arranged her buttons again.

Khern helped Mara settle into the twenty-eighth cot. Brakka found a space beside the foot where Split-Tooth could curl without touching the warm cords. Rath examined the nearest exit and discovered Nehra had already wedged it open. Veyrun sat with his back against the wall, facing Button-Keeper without appearing to look at her.

Mara noticed everything.

She said nothing.

The lights dimmed in stages. Seven Cots quieted unevenly. A child continued complaining about blanket direction until Button-Keeper corrected it. The elderly men resumed their argument in whispers. Someone near the cooking corner scraped the burned fungus from the bottom of a pot and ate it rather than waste the clean portions.

Nehra checked every cot.

She asked before touching each person.

At Mara’s bed, she adjusted the warm air basin but kept the relief cords tied back.

“No decisions tonight,” she said.

Mara nodded. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow belongs to whoever survives sleeping.”

Khern sat beside the cot until Mara’s breathing became shallow but steady. She reached for his hand without opening her eyes.

Not the damaged one.

The other.

“You should sleep,” she murmured.

“So should you.”

“I am.”

“You are speaking.”

“I have always been talented.”

Her grip weakened as she drifted.

Khern remained.

Across the room, Button-Keeper sat awake beside her folded blankets. She removed the hidden sweet half from her sleeve, examined it, then wrapped it carefully in cloth and placed it beneath her pillow.

Veyrun watched.

The final lamp dimmed.

Button-Keeper turned toward the wall and raised one hand.

Five soft taps entered the stone.

Veyrun’s fingers lifted from his knee.

Four answering taps waited inside them.

He did not let them out.