It moves.
It moves…away.
Repelled.
Rejected.
Again.
A deflated huff escapes her. “Fuck,” she grunts, wiping the sweat starting to bead on her forehead.
She tries to compose herself, but…
Her fist slams into the workbench with a force that rattles her teeth. A frustrated scream rips from her throat. She leans on the workbench, hands still balled into fists.
“It shouldn’t be possible,” she mutters.
Her hands shake. Not from fear—from the screaming pressure building beneath her skin.
Rubi reaches automatically for the thin silver tin buried beneath parchment stacks. Flicks it open. White powder. Crushed dreamroot and frostmint. Sharp enough to cut through exhaustion. Sharp enough to keep feeling away for another hour. She shakes loose a line of powder, depositing it on the workbench, and with practiced efficiency, bends over it, and inhaleshard.
The burn hits instantly. Bitter. Chemical. Clarifying.
Better.
She focuses her mind back on the threvenar.
It’s resisting the bind.
It’s resisting removal.
As if…
Its binding sites are occupied.
A sharp pang of realization grips her. Her stomach drops so violently she braces against the table. She clutches her chest as if she can hold in her shock. As if she can contain what this means.
Because if she’s right…
It means the threvenar is already claimed by something else.
Already bound. Already sealed. It means…
“It’s been altered to prevent extraction,” she murmurs.
Fuck.
Thoughts flood her.
It’s not contaminated.
Not degraded.
Not unstable.
Engineered.
It has to be.
