"A shard does not speak, it hungers. Those who hear words mistake the sound of their own unraveling." , Attributed to the Dreaming Chronicler
The ruins groaned like a dying leviathan as the echoes of the Shard-Beast's death ebbed into silence. Dust hung thick in the cavernous hall, drifting in sluggish eddies as if reluctant to settle. What light remained came from veins of fractured stone and half-broken glyphs sputtering with dim flame. Every breath carried grit, every exhale fogged in the cooling air.
The chamber smelled of scorched moss, of ancient stone split raw, of coppery blood soaking into earth that had not tasted life in centuries. The hiss of steam rose from fissures in the altar, mingling with the faint crackle of burning ichor that still clung to broken flagstones.
Every sound was magnified in the stillness, the grind of pebbles rolling down fractured walls, the ragged panting of lungs desperate for air, the tremor of steel being sheathed by trembling hands.
