The tremors ceased for a while, giving off a feeling of calm before a storm.
The silence that followed was heavier than the shaking had ever been. It pressed against their eardrums and sank into their bones, an oppressive stillness that made everyone glance around as if expecting something, anything, to lunge from the darkness.
Sarissa's fingers curled tighter around the shard.
"You're serious…" She said after a while. Her voice was lower now, touched with something almost reverent as she looked at the fragment. "You're really asking me to come with you to the bottom of that dungeon…"
"I'm not just asking. I'm trusting." Miles didn't blink.
Sarissa turned the shard over in her palm. Now that she'd attuned to it, after the temporary transfer was truly complete, however briefly, she could feel the weight of it, like a lock waiting for its key.
Like a door that Miles had already begun to open.
"I need to think." She said.
