The ravine ended in a bowl.
Naomi saw it from the last bend: the walls falling back on both sides, the root canopy lifting into a dome thirty feet high, and the floor of the bowl gone pale and lumpy under a skin of something that glistened. It took her a second to understand that the lumps were eggs. Hundreds of them, each one the size of a watermelon, packed together in a grey-green mass that pulsed very slightly, like a lung.
On top of the mass sat the very large signature.
"That's not the core," Belle said quietly at her shoulder.
"No."
"The core's still pinging. It's under this. Deep. Way under." Belle's voice had gone thin and fast, the way it did when her Treasure Sense was feeding her more than her mouth could keep up with. "I read it as one signal for two hours because this thing was sitting right on top of it. It's a nest, Love. That's a mother."
