Dawn broke over Prison World in shades of p urple.
Owen sat against the boulder wall of the camp, watching Gorvax's chest rise and fall. The Sower had been in RCT for nearly four hours now. His abyss-black eyes were closed, his blue skin slowly regaining color. The bandage across his ribs had stopped seeping. The internal bleeding was slowing.
But it wasn't enough.
Owen could see it even without scanning. Gorvax was healing the surface. The cracked ribs were knitting. The punctured lung was sealing properly this time. But the deeper damage—the nerve pathways in his left arm, the cosmic-energy ruptures in his core—those needed more than time and meditation.
Tessa crouched beside him, offering a strip of dried meat. "You should eat."
"Not hungry."
"You've been carrying him for two days and suppressing your CE the whole time. Eat, or you'll pass out next."
He took the meat. Chewed slowly.
