"I don't like this," she murmured.
"You're not supposed to," Lindarion replied, voice low.
They landed in the outer courtyard. Weeds the color of dried blood split the cracked flagstones, and bones, animal or otherwise, littered the corners where shadows clung stubbornly to the walls. The silence wasn't natural; it was too deep, too deliberate.
He stepped down from Ashwing, boots crunching on brittle gravel.
The mana hit him almost immediately. Not raw power, not active, but residue. Ancient, layered, and wrong.
His divine affinity flared instinctively, sifting through the traces like a hunter testing the scent of its prey. Darkness affinity answered next, resonating faintly as if the stone itself remembered pain. And beneath both… a rhythm. Like a heartbeat, slow and far away, buried deep within the earth.
"Nysha," he said without looking back, "don't touch anything."
She gave a nervous laugh. "That bad?"
"Worse."
