Chapter 694 - Professionally Alive, Personally Shaken (End)

The bell tapped once, and the sound ran along the rib like a fingernail on glass. It wasn't loud. It was thin and precise, the kind of sound a careful person makes when asking a locked door to speak up. Thalatha stilled before the echo finished, stopping the air in her chest as if breath itself were a noise. Her hand rose with the smallest economy—two fingers, not high, not dramatic. The line captains didn't need drama. They needed a fact that could travel from knuckle to knuckle. Rims answered with a hush. Elbows settled. Even the lich crowns dimmed a shade, as if embarrassed by their own glow.