At the start of the fourth hour, the sixth Keystone's reading did something it had never done before.
It went down.
Norrak saw it first, because he was the one taking the reading, the same routine he had run for three and a half hours straight, every two minutes.
He read the number twice before he said anything, the same way Rakh'ash'tha had checked the calf twitch a second time before telling him about it.
"It went down," he said. "Not by much. But down."
Vor'gath, who had been timing his disruptions to the ninety-second rhythm for three and a half hours, almost without break, opened his eyes.
"Say the number again."
Norrak said it again.
Vor'gath sat with it for a long moment, and then, for the first time since the reading had started climbing, he stopped.
He did not stop because he decided to. He stopped because the rhythm he had been listening for, the small overlapping pressures, was no longer there to listen to.
