One small flicker of hope had remained, lingering by the tips of its hold, that whatever was about to happen she might be able to prevent. That the seal in her pocket might be put in its place again before the thing it held broke free. And had she arrived an hour sooner, even half of one, that may have been true.
But instead there's a cloying sense in the air, a heat that prickles over her skin like a thousand tiny feet, rustling, scurrying, although she hasn't recognised it yet, in sets of eight. Fresh footprints show in the dust, picked out by the light of lanterns set beside the walls, both left by the same explorers who had preceded her here - people she now has no expectation of finding alive.
Whispers drift from the shadows beyond the lit pools, sounds that do not emanate from the rock itself.
And further in, louder, there is breathing.
Thera's own lungs expand, a deeper draw than the last that settles on the sound. Senses reach, brushing the solidity of the tunnel walls, ready to take hold if the need arrives - and then she moves on. Until ... the whisper rises, sharp and sudden, as if in concert with heat that rolls through the fabric of the pocket on her hip. Not burning, not yet, but triggered as if a line has been crossed.
Halt - ! Not English, not Spanish, but she somehow knows it; far more than she knows the figure on his knees ahead of her. Tall, at first glance, yet frantically, achingly thin, bones beneath skin picked out by the same lamplight that reveals the rest. It's only the work of a moment to connect the seal's activation to his obeisance, even before the gesture, the speech so pained it's almost a moan.
"Put it down?" Her own words taste odd, morphing from her own tongue to something other. "I don't think so," Dry, with a small shake of her head, "not yet. Who are you?"
