---
The green lines brightened first, then the crimson threaded through them deepened and spread until the whole little shell looked like a living flower bud built from blood and spring together. The surrounding grass bent inward toward it. Tiny red-veined blooms, no larger than fingernails, opened in the widening growth around the base. Thin root-lines under the soil lit up in expanding rings, and the nearest stretch of dead ground cracked softly as more life pushed through.
Bat Bat moved to the cocoon's side at once, but this time she did not touch even the air around it. She only hovered near it, both hands clasped tightly against her own chest, eyes so wide and fixed that for once there was not a trace of performance in her face.
"She is waking."
Sekhmet did not answer aloud.
He did not need to.
That much was plain.
The shell trembled once.
Then again.
