The gorge pinched tighter the deeper they went, until the path was no wider than their own shoulders. Damp stone pressed on either side, cold and slick, scraping the edges of their cloaks. The sky had dwindled to a knife-sliver above, a pale ribbon of gray struggling to pour light into the crushing dark. Mist clung stubbornly in the throat of the gorge, coiling in slow, heavy strands that swallowed sound and softened every footfall into silence.
Leo felt the weight of it in his bones. The echoes of the bound man's words, We remember. And so will you., gnawed at his skull, never loosening their grip. His fragment pulsed to the rhythm of the words, as if echoing their truth, as if it had always known and was only now reminding him.
At the head of their narrow line, Sofia moved like a blade in motion, sword drawn, eyes cutting from ridge to ridge with the focus of a predator. "This was a channel once," she murmured, voice low but carrying. "Now it feels like a trap."
