The Cruentus Heart did not announce itself differently from the Cruentus Mouth .
The same blood-red canopy above . The same crimson atmospheric register that the Black Earth maintained regardless of what was happening beneath it . The same shadow domain concentration — denser here than at the Mouth's boundary threshold , the Heart's deeper position in the forest producing a saturation that made the Mouth's ambient pressure feel like the edge of something rather than the thing itself .
What was different was the quiet .
