Location: ARDH — the cavern, Isha's door · THE PAVILION — the sanctuary · ARDH — the rim
Date: 3 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Temperday, late morning → 4 Frostforge, Quenchday, first light
Realm: Lower Realm
Jayde saw it before she felt it.
For fifty-one minutes, the braid had leaned on the field in front of her. Some places it pressed a hand's width, some places three. Now it let go of the field without falling back. It hung where it was, and the filaments standing in the air hung with it. Then the whole of it came down at once. It did not slide, and it did not sag. It settled, as rope settles on a deck when the hand at the other end opens.
The whisper had been under everything since the first step down the shaft, so long that she had stopped hearing it around the twentieth minute. It did not grow quieter. It ended between one breath and the next.
She kept her palm on the field and waited for the next press. It did not come.
She turned her head.
