The doors did not open—they inhaled. The vast gates of shadow bent backward, groaning like ribs parting, and the world exhaled into a silence so complete I thought I'd gone deaf. One by one, we crossed the threshold, and it was like stepping into a lung. The air moved without wind. The walls twitched. Veins of black fire pulsed in rhythm with a heartbeat too vast to belong to anything mortal.
"Naelthuun varach, shaedra vel coruun," hissed the stones, their glyphs crawling, glowing, burning.
Statues that should have been relics of gods long-dead stood before us—but as we neared, they crumbled, not into dust, but into living shadows. Those shadows took up the shapes of kings and martyrs, wolves and dragons, bleeding their false faces in smoke.
My oath burned against my skin, an invisible brand carved by the Ironsworn's blood-pledges. Around me, I felt the others choking—wolves growling in madness, dragons coughing like the air itself was poison.
