Not a single sound escaped from him.
The amphitheatre breathed around him like the throat of a buried organ, each pulse of the lull-tone rolling up through the ribs and across his chest. Every sealed bulb flickered faintly, wet skins sweating with resin light. Pale shapes turned from inside their sacs—curled and dreaming, suspended between life and stone.
Riven's voice coiled through again, 'It looks like hundreds… maybe more…'
'If this chamber wakes, it will drown us,' Ash replied as he waited through three pulses and counted the quiet between them.
Three soft contractions, one long drain, then the breath where the stone forgot itself. Beneath, the sacs made a tiny, wet settling—like a thousand mouths rolling their sleep from cheek to cheek. The lull tunneled through the ward like a thin saw.
