Black-Crown waited beneath Jiang with its head pointed at the pressure throat.
Cold water moved over the adult's back. Beyond its tail, silver fish fed under the ice as if hunger above them belonged to another world.
Jiang tucked the loose sling end beneath the strap around his breast.
The knot sat within reach of his beak. Loosening it would let the failed flipper trail in the current and twist at the swollen joint. Jiang pressed the binding tighter against his side. He chose crooked swimming over tearing the limb farther.
His right foot held the rim. His left slipped twice before the claws found a rough notch. Entering would put water beneath his weight and take the open lead from above his beak.
Black-Crown turned once below him.
The turn looked impatient. Whatever Black-Crown meant, the adult had already spent more time under the roof than Jiang had.
Behind Jiang, White-Nape answered Pale-Cheek inside the huddle. Split-Beak shifted toward Grey-Throat's call. Every parent near the lead had a hungry chick waiting, and Black-Crown was spending breath while Jiang argued with his feet.
Jiang wanted the old skill to work.
He had chosen it, tested it, and paid for it with a body that could barely stand after the last hold. Permanent ought to mean present when the water closed over his head.
That thought sounded convincing until he remembered how often wanting had tried to rewrite a cost.
He pushed away from the rim.
Water took his breast and lifted the ache from his feet. For one easy stroke, Jiang almost believed support meant recovery.
His right flipper drove down.
The bound left side curved under the force. Instead of going straight, his body rolled toward the failed flipper. Both feet opened behind him and corrected, but the turn spent distance Black-Crown covered with another clean stroke.
Jiang pulled the right flipper close and drove again.
Cold entered beneath the sling. Blood from his shoulder loosened into a thin dark cloud, then vanished behind him.
Black-Crown reduced its speed at the first bend.
It held the center of the route where Jiang could see its white breast each time thicker ice hid the dark back. No call passed between them. One body stayed where the other could follow.
Surface tapping had ended when Jiang entered. Their useful rule had narrowed to sight: Black-Crown kept white feathers in the blue seams, and Jiang kept his dark head aimed at the living bird rather than whichever voice sounded nearest.
Bent-Toe called from a crack on the left.
The stored note carried the same tired break Jiang had heard before the adult's final hunt. White-Nape's mate had once answered that sound. Under the ice, it came without lungs, wounds, or a body moving toward home.
Pale-Cheek called from the right.
Black-Crown's head moved between both cracks.
Jiang crossed behind it before either recording repeated. His right stroke pushed; the bound side dragged; his feet fought the roll. Keeping Black-Crown in view mattered more than taking the shortest line.
The pressure throat closed around them.
Ice lowered over Jiang's back while a black-green root rose from beneath. The gap left little room for a full flipper stroke. Black-Crown narrowed its movement and slid through with small, forceful beats.
Jiang tried to match it.
His right flipper struck root-dark water. Spiritual pressure pressed through his breastbone and drove his heart faster. Each beat spent the air he had carried down. The failed side pulled him into the lower branch, away from Black-Crown's tail.
He kicked with both feet.
The left answered late. Jiang's belly scraped the root and sent black-green light through his feathers.
Air pushed against the back of his closed beak.
At the narrowest place, he found a shallow notch beneath the roof and wedged his shoulder there. Movement stopped. The pressure remained.
This was where `Pressure Heart I` belonged: near-stillness under spiritual weight, one living heart conserving what movement would spend.
Reaching inward, Jiang called for the instinct.
A fast ordinary heartbeat answered him. Another crowded after it; the wide conserving interval never came. Water kept drawing heat from every edge.
Cold text opened across his sight.
`[PRESSURE HEART I UNAVAILABLE: RECOVERY INCOMPLETE]`
The notice supplied no new injury and no timer. It named the cost still living in him from the chamber where he had ended the last hold unable to stand.
Jiang had treated all the distance since that chamber as recovery. The System had promised compulsory recovery, not that travel, fighting, cold, and hunger would complete it in the background.
No instruction followed. His heart kept spending ordinary air.
Jiang hated the line because it was accurate.
Black-Crown reached the feeding shelf.
Fish burst around the adult's beak. It could have taken the nearest silver body with one turn. Instead, Black-Crown looked back through the throat.
Jiang remained stuck in the notch.
His body had spent breath reaching a place where the skill could fail correctly.
He pulled his shoulder free.
Pain opened under the sling. The right flipper swept hard enough to roll him, yet the bound side kept the roll from becoming forward motion. His beak touched ice. A string of air escaped along the roof.
Behind Black-Crown, Pale-Cheek screamed.
The copied distress moved through the lower branch. It began near the fish and raced toward the darkness behind the adult, changing position in a way the fixed taps had not.
Black-Crown turned after it.
The fragment had learned to move sound through its root.
Jiang saw the open lead as a weak grey break behind his own tail. Black-Crown faced the other direction, pulled between the impossible chick and the bird failing in the throat.
A warning note would give Gredudande more of him; silence would send Black-Crown down the wrong route. Jiang chose the cost he could see.
Facing the grey break, he opened his beak and forced a low call through the water. Bubbles tore the second voice apart, but the note began inside a visible body facing the lead.
Black-Crown looked at him.
The fragment copied Jiang from behind the adult with a cleaner two-voice call.
Black-Crown looked back once.
Jiang drove his right flipper down and spent the last useful part of his breath on movement. His body cleared the lower branch, struck the edge of the return current, and went rigid when the failed flipper twisted inside its binding.
Black-Crown hit him breast-first.
The collision turned Jiang toward the grey light. A beak struck the feathers beside his sling, released, then struck lower. Black-Crown drove his rigid body into the current without taking hold of him.
Being hit toward safety still felt like being hit. Jiang wanted to fight the contact, to prove he remained the one choosing his body. His right flipper answered with a weak half-stroke and showed him exactly how much choice was left.
He took the current.
Water began carrying Jiang toward the lead.
He worked his feet. The right found the current and held it. His left trailed, then gave one weak correction when the roof tried to turn him sideways.
Behind them, Bent-Toe and Pale-Cheek called from opposite branches. Jiang's own clean copy joined both.
Black-Crown stayed close enough for white breast and dark eye to remain visible. A body length of water remained between them as the open lead widened overhead.
Breaking the surface on his side, Jiang caught air in pieces. His beak opened too wide; his chest pulled faster than his throat could manage. One foot clawed ice while the other pushed water, and neither lifted him onto the rim.
Black-Crown surfaced beside him.
Its body struck under Jiang's breast once, enough to put his claws against rough ice. Jiang hauled with the right flipper and rolled onto the surface.
Black-Crown climbed out under its own power.
Both beaks were empty.
White-Nape and Split-Beak waited several body lengths back. Black-Crown met them at the lead and drove them away before either could enter. Then it returned to Jiang.
The adult pecked his shoulder binding exactly once.
Jiang snapped back too slowly to reach it.
Black-Crown settled beside the opening, wet breast rising hard, and watched the water while Jiang's breathing fought its way toward order.
From inside the huddle came Pale-Cheek's living answer, followed by Grey-Throat's rougher call. White-Nape and Split-Beak heard their chicks and still watched the lead. Empty parents had returned twice; hunger kept bringing them back.
No gratitude passed between them. Black-Crown had redirected the body that held the exit. Jiang had spent the breath that turned Black-Crown away from a false chick. Each act kept the shared route alive.
The System waited until Jiang could read without choking.
`[SUSTAINED DIVE CONDITION INCOMPLETE: RETURN UNDER OWN BREATH]`
The line offered nothing to choose. It left Jiang with another dive.
Beyond the black-green throat, fish gathered again under the ice.