"The problem with lying is that your body keeps telling the truth."
***
Marcus’s wound was shallow. A surface laceration that had sliced through fabric and skin without reaching muscle or bone.
But the sight of his own blood imdiately drained all the color from his face.
His mouth opened and closed several tis. No sound erged. When he finally found his voice again, it ca out as a strangled squeak.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no. Is it poisoned? The manual says goblin weapons are often coated with toxins and venoms, and if I’m going to die from blood poisoning I need to write a letter to my mother first, and I haven’t updated my will and—"
"You’re not going to die," Seraphina assured him. Already pulled bandages from her kit. Her movents were smooth and sure. The result of years of training. "It’s a clean cut. No signs of infection or poisoning. The blade wasn’t coated with anything worse than old blood."
She guided him to sit against the tunnel wall. Away from the goblin’s corpse. Began cleaning the wound with quiet focus. Her fingers moved over his arm like she was reading braille. Probed gently for damage while keeping her touch light enough not to cause unnecessary pain.
I watched her work. Noted the calm assurance of every motion.
Her grey eyes took on that distant look I’d seen before. The look of soone seeing more than the surface of things.
She wasn’t just examining the wound. She was using sothing else. A skill, maybe. Sothing that let her see beneath the skin.
[Vital Sight]. She’s using her skill to examine the wound.
Which ans she’d probably had it active during the fight.
Which ans she’d been watching all of us. Monitoring our vital signs. Tracking our stress responses.
Which ans she’d seen that while Marcus and Thomlin showed all the physiological signs of combat stress... elevated heart rates, rapid breathing, the telltale markers of adrenaline and fear...
I’d shown nothing.
I forced myself not to react to that thought.
Instead, I slumped against the tunnel wall and let my sword clatter to the floor with a tallic ring that echoed through the passage. My shoulders sagged. My head drooped. I let out a long, shaky breath that was ant to communicate pure relief.
"Is everyone else okay?" I asked. My voice shook just enough to sell the performance. "That was... that was terrifying. I thought we were all going to die. I really thought we were going to die. My hands won’t stop shaking. Look at them. They’re shaking."
I held up my hands. Which were indeed trembling.
Not from fear, of course. I was making them shake deliberately. Controlled the fine muscle movents with the sa care I’d used to trip over that rock. But the effect was convincing enough.
"We’re fine," Thomlin said. Though he was studying the rockfall with a frown that suggested he was thinking hard about sothing. His eyes traced the pile of rubble. Then flicked back to the remains of the pillar. "Lucky break, that ceiling coming down when it did. Split them up just right."
"Very lucky," Seraphina agreed quietly.
Sothing in her tone made look up.
She was watching again. Those grey eyes thoughtful and far too perceptive. Her hands had finished bandaging Marcus’s wound. The white cloth wrapped neatly around his forearm. But she hadn’t looked away from my face.
Her expression was neutral. Professional. The kind of expression that revealed nothing while taking in everything.
"What?" I asked. Injected just the right amount of self-consciousness into my voice. I touched my face with one trembling hand. Felt for dampness. "Do I have goblin blood on ? I feel like I have goblin blood on . I definitely got so on my sleeve. Is it on my face too?"
"No," she said after a mont that stretched just a little too long. "No blood."
But she didn’t stop watching.
I held her gaze for three heartbeats. Let my eyes widen slightly with confusion and embarrassnt. Then looked away first.
The submissive gesture of soone who couldn’t handle sustained eye contact. The behavior of a coward who’d just survived sothing terrifying and didn’t know how to process it.
She noticed sothing. She saw sothing that doesn’t add up. The question is whether she’ll pursue it or let it go.
Marcus finished collecting his scattered manual pages. Muttered darkly about water damage and the need for better storage solutions. He’d recovered his composure sowhat. Though he still kept glancing at his bandaged arm like he expected it to fall off at any mont.
When he consulted his map again, his hands were steadier than before.
"According to this," he announced. Traced a route with one finger. "We should continue straight for another hundred yards, then take the left fork toward the Crystal Caverns. The rockfall might have blocked our retreat, but it also ans we won’t be followed by the remaining hostiles. Chapter Nineteen states that goblins rarely pursue prey through unstable terrain."
"Silver lining," Thomlin muttered. Shouldered his pack with a grunt. "Let’s get moving before more of them show up. Or before anything else decides to fall on us."
We set off again. Stepped carefully around the goblin’s corpse and the scattered debris from the ceiling collapse. I made sure to stumble once more for good asure. Caught myself against the wall with a muttered curse and a dramatic stagger.
But as we walked deeper into the warrens, I could feel Seraphina’s eyes on my back.
===
The fight was over.
Marcus was busy reorganizing his manual pages. Thomlin was cleaning his sword. Kaelen was slumped against the tunnel wall looking like he might vomit at any mont.
Everyone was congratulating themselves on their luck. The fortuitous rockfall. The isolated goblin. The minimal injuries.
But Seraphina had seen sothing else entirely.
She’d kept her [Vital Sight] active throughout the encounter. A habit drilled into her by years of training with healers who emphasized the importance of monitoring your party’s condition during combat. Through the skill’s perception, she could see the ebb and flow of life force. The spike of adrenaline. The flutter of panic in a racing heart.
Marcus’s vitals had been a textbook case of combat stress: elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, the telltale signs of soone operating on pure adrenaline and terror.
Thomlin had shown the controlled aggression of a trained fighter. Heightened but steady. The vitals of soone who knew what they were doing even if they didn’t enjoy it.
And Kaelen...
Kaelen’s vitals had been as calm as a sleeping cat’s.
Not just during the aftermath, when the danger had passed and relief might explain the steadiness. During the entire encounter.
When the goblins had first appeared. When Marcus had shouted his ridiculous orders. When Kaelen himself had stumbled forward into apparent danger.
His heart rate had never spiked. His breathing had never quickened. There had been no physiological response to fear. No adrenaline surge. No signs of the panic that had been so evident in his voice and movents.
The only mont his vitals had changed at all was a brief spike of... sothing... just before he’d "tripped" on that rock.
Not fear. Not panic.
Sothing sharper. More focused.
Sothing like concentration.
Seraphina watched Kaelen push himself away from the wall. Saw him fumble with his sword as he prepared to follow the others deeper into the tunnel.
Every movent scread incompetence. Fear. Barely controlled panic.
But his vitals told a different story entirely.
That wasn’t an accident, she thought. Studied the way he held himself. The way his eyes moved when he thought no one was watching.
But... what was it?
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