She caught his look. Instantly her face flushed and she snatched up a cloak one of the rescue party had left beside her, wrapped it around herself. Eldon was surprised. The prudery of bodily modesty had seemed entirely lacking from her character. In her home she had always been charmingly natural and unembarrassed.
She saw he had discovered his new arm and eye.
"Pleased?" she asked.
He nodded vigorously, forgetting everything else.
He felt a pull, a tugging deep within himself. Krasna felt it too and jumped up.
"Come," she urged. "We must get out of the Chamber at once."
Together they climbed a crystal-lined passage so steep it was almost a shaft. His muscles felt stale, unused and stiff. They came out on the rugged slope of a mountain, high above the forest line, and the opening to the Chamber was a small black hole amid a cluster of boulders.
Eldon shivered in the chill wind after the tingling warmth of the Chamber, and Krasna drew her cloak more closely around the tattered remains of her clothing. There was a flash of movement among the rocks and Tikta came running, chattering happily. Krasna stroked its soft fur and the lemur-thing placed its paws on her head in the way Eldon had learned meant mental communication.
He watched her face become set and grim.
"Things are going—badly," she said.