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Elara refused sedation while Kesta worked around the port.

“You will move when I tell you,” Kesta said.

“That sounds dangerously like command-class behavior.”

“It sounds like a medic trying not to sever your spinal relay.”

“Better.”

Their old rhythm returned in fragments: irritation used as reassurance, technical argument standing in for fear. But the woman on the floor was not the Elara Kesta had known before the tribunal. She tracked exits compulsively. She flinched when anyone approached from behind. Every time the station voice changed pitch, her left hand closed around an imaginary instrument.

“What did they make you do?” Kesta asked quietly.

Elara looked toward the children. “Translate consent into metrics. They asked whether a subject calmed when a specific person entered, whether pain made attachment stronger, whether relief could be mistaken for love.”

“And you answered?”

“At first I falsified results. Then they connected the port and used my nervous system to verify observations.” Her mouth flattened. “Eventually I stopped knowing whether a lie was mine or one they had allowed because it improved the experiment.”

Kesta understood then that Elara’s distrust of certainty lived in her body, not in philosophy.

“We will remove the port,” Kesta said.

“Maybe.”

“No. Not maybe.”

Elara’s gaze sharpened. “Do not promise outcomes you cannot control.” Kesta forced herself to amend the statement. “We will attempt removal under conditions you choose, with the risks explained before we begin.” Elara relaxed by a fraction. “There you are.”

Across the ward, Dreven crouched so one of the older children could see his face rather than only his size. The boy asked whether the horns meant he was dangerous.

“Yes,” Dreven said.

The boy recoiled. Dreven added, “Danger is not the same as permission.” The child considered that, then allowed Dreven to lift the broken bed frame pinning another prisoner’s leg. Elara watched him. “He learns quickly.”

“He learns painfully.”

“Those are often the lessons people keep.”

When the child’s breathing steadied, Nara refused to release her hand. The girl’s name was Iri. The other two were Sol and Ren, siblings only by the improvised kinship of Hallow. Nara had promised each of them a different impossible future: a real sky, fruit that had never passed through a ration printer, sleep without a lock engaging outside the door.

“Do not tell them all promises are lies,” Nara said to Kesta while Sera prepared the stretchers.

“I was not going to.”

“You were thinking it.”

Kesta had been thinking that survival promises could become another form of control. Nara saw the thought and rejected it.

“Some promises are maps,” Nara said. “You may fail to reach the place. That does not make the direction false.”

Kesta carried the thought with her. Elara asked for a weapon before Dreven carried her farther.

“You cannot stand,” Kesta said.

“I can aim.”

Dreven offered his sidearm grip-first. Elara checked the charge, then tucked it where she could reach without crossing his body.