Caelan's hands were surprisingly gentle as he steadied her, a stark contrast to the rough, insistent way he'd dragged her through the passages. The brief, unexpected kindness was more unsettling than his aggression had been. It was a glimpse of something other than reckless insanity, a flicker of... humanity, perhaps, that made him all the more dangerous.
"Breathe," he murmured, his voice a low, steady murmur against the oppressive silence. "It's just stone. Old, angry stone. It can't hurt you."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that the frozen figures on the walls were just elaborate carvings, a morbid form of artistic expression. But she knew better. She could feel it, a faint, residual echo of their terror, a cold, prickling sensation on the back of her neck. They were real. They had been real people, and now they were just... decorations.
She took a shaky breath, the air in her lungs feeling heavy, thick with the dust of a thousand crushed hopes.
