"Walls remember more than words, and they speak when silence breaks." , Sayings of the Wandering Monks
The chamber breathed.
It was not imagination. They all felt it, the subtle shift of air, the faint stirring of dust where no wind should have been. The torches they carried guttered and bent inward, flames straining toward the altar as though drawn by some unseen lung. Every flicker of fire cast long, quivering shadows across the serpent-carved pillars, turning stone coils into writhing specters.
Leo's breath caught and stuttered. The fragment beneath his ribs hammered like a furnace, each beat a violent surge of heat that threatened to split his chest open. Green light, not of torch or altar, bled across his vision, searing every blink with afterimages.
"Something's wrong," Evelyn whispered, her voice ragged. She clutched her staff so tightly her knuckles were bloodless, the golden tether of light quivering like a strand ready to snap.
