The circle was closing.
The constructs pressed inward, each step grinding stone into powder, each hollow movement sending tremors up through the shattered terraces. The ruined valley seemed alive with their march, alive and hostile, its very soil groaning as though it longed to swallow intruders whole. Dust drifted from broken walls and sank into their lungs, dry and bitter like grave-ash.
Leo's chest tightened, his breath snagging against the weight of it. The fragment pulsed within him, an alien heartbeat nested inside his own. Each throb was sharper than the last, clawing at the walls of his mind. Let me out, it whispered. No, not whispered, demanded. Its voice was a serrated rasp, curling with hunger. Tear them apart. End this farce. Burn the chain to cinders.
