Ferra opened the maintenance panel beneath the tested supports, and the chamber behind it ran deeper than its walls allowed. Beyond a nullstone aperture, spatial glass folded the distance around another boundary while a forced twelve-beat pulse returned beneath it.
Hajin kept both hands empty and his weapon stored, "Okay, nobody pulls out anything shiny."
'There's a child behind that glass, and she doesn't need one more blade coming at her.'
Divine Eye caught the treatment connections first, tracing their edges like wire buried under frost.
Then the sight behind those connections finally sharpened, and it found her.
A soul membrane wrapped the child's body while twelve needles entered the core beneath her sternum through a connected array. She hugged her knees inside an oversized tunic, bandages over punctured forearm and throat, and a hand shielding her horns.
Her left horn showed past her fingers, chipped near the base, the one part she failed to hide.
"Fuck," he breathed.
