VICTORIA POV
The temple isn't like the others.
It's old—so old, the stones don't hold their shape anymore. Nature has taken half of it back. Roots crawl up the broken walls, and vines hang like silent witnesses. The roof is long gone. The sky is open above the altar, black and wide like an empty ocean.
I can feel the temple breathing around me. Slow, deep, heavy breaths like it's just woken up from a long sleep. The air is thick and cold, but it doesn't feel like wind—it feels like something watching me. Something old. Something hungry.
The altar itself sits at the center of the ruin, built from bone and stone. Twelve giant ribs curve around it like a crown, each one charred at the tip—as if fire once kissed them and never left.
The floor is rough under my bare feet. My dress glides over dried blood, the fabric soaking in stories of screams long gone. The bones in the altar glow softly now, welcoming me like a throne welcomes a queen.
And I am a queen now.
A queen of Shadows.
