Location: ARDH — the cavern, the strip of bare stone at the face, Isha's door
Date: 3 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Temperday, mid-morning
Realm: Lower Realm
The smell turned first.
For the length of three breaths after Eden called the clock, the cavern went on smelling as it had on the stair: wet, blood-warm, faintly sweet, like a byre in summer with the doors shut. Then the sweetness thinned and went sharp at the back of the throat, as milk goes sharp, and Jayde knew before she heard anything that the knot had felt where Yinxin's hands were.
The whisper stopped.
It did not fade. It stopped, from the strip of bare stone outward, a silence going across the floor of the cavern faster than anyone could have run it. Every blind head in the braid lifted and came round to the same side.
"Count," Jayde said.
Eden had the datapad up before the word was out. Her face was lit blue from beneath. "I can't see the far wall. What I can see is thirteen thousand and some, and it's still adding."
