The choice waited while the Bellmother breathed around him.
The System had offered a living catalyst and named its price. Whatever entered Jiang would be drawn out of flesh that still belonged to the animal around him.
Jiang could still feel her blood pulsing against the open channel below his flank feathers. Warmth entered on each beat and eased when the living wall relaxed. If he accepted, the System would not be drawing from a dead spill on the floor.
It would bite deeper through him.
Behind the wall lay the brood saddle his partner had chosen for her dead mate. Below it, two wounds leaked because Jiang and the others had torn the armada's barbs free.
He wanted the power.
His failed wing trembled against the floor. The straight leg hurt where the wakehound's teeth had clipped it. Cold air already found the water beneath his feathers, and the Bellmother's blood offered the first warmth that had not needed another body to hold him upright.
