Ysabet stared down at the small six-legged creature beside her knee. The green light under Pip’s ribs was steady, though the thin plates along its back were shivering from the strain of holding the assembled voice of Azhrak behind its teeth.
“If Ashaun cuts the seed organ out from under the crown,” Ysabet said, her voice tight as she looked at Osha, “what happens to Pip? That seed is what grew the pouch and the shell. It’s what kept it alive in the reliquary.”
Osha came over the wet gravel and knelt beside them, setting her leather instrument roll down on a dry stone. She did not look away or soften her mouth the way temple healers did when a beast was too broken to mend.
“It will end the restoration pathway for good,” Osha said plainly. “Without that organ, nothing can ever gather Azhrak’s treasury back together or turn people’s prayers into new armor. The crown will fall, and most of the outer shell will probably shed with it. Pip will lose whatever god-strength is sitting in those plates.” She swallowed hard, her eyes flicking to the pulsing vein beneath Pip’s lattice crown. “And I cannot promise you it will survive the shock, Ysabet. Even if its heart keeps beating, the bond between you was built across that crown’s lower roots. Cutting the organ free may sever the link completely.”
