Nine hours into the descent, Lily stopped walking.
The eight thrones stopped with her. The circle of carried ground came to rest in the middle of a tunnel so wide its walls were lost in the dark.
"Do you hear that?" she asked.
Nobody did. They never did when Lily asked that question. She closed her eyes and tilted her head, and the others waited.
"Wind," she said. "There's wind down here."
"There can't be," Rudra said. "We're forty miles under the shell. There's no air moving anywhere."
"There is now." Lily opened her eyes. "And I've heard this wind before. It cut me open in front of a whole stadium."
Rudra went very still.
"Vantress," he said.
Maya confirmed it a minute later.
She stood at the front edge of the thrones with Farsight Loom spread out before her in thin silver threads. Every thread ran off into the dark and came back carrying something.
"It's the group I felt yesterday," she said. "They're close now. Maybe a mile east and a little below us."
