The air grew heavier with every step.
Not with magic, though there was plenty of that buried in the stone around them, but with something more familiar.
Weight.
Like this place had been a battlefield long before either side arrived.
Lindarion followed Velistra down the winding path into the heart of the underground, Sylric beside him, cloak dragging over dust-covered tiles.
The walls shimmered faintly, not with runes, but with layered scars in the stone, etched by time or force or both.
Ashwing's voice, dry in his mind: "You're walking into a nest again."
'I know.'
"I'm not saying don't. I'm just saying… last time you did something like this a year ago, you broke four ribs."
'I broke five.'
"Ah. Right. Better odds."
The tunnel opened up.
Not into another hallway, but a chamber.
Circular. Wide. The ceiling arched high overhead, carved into a pattern of roots and wings that pulsed faintly with reddish-blue veins.
