Keiser exhaled in quiet relief when his boot finally landed on the last step of the staircase Althira had conjured, identical to the one she'd made back in the dungeon, and so very similar to the mana-formed stairs he himself had created to descend into the undercroft.
From the top of the wreckage where they began, the ground had peeled open at Althira's mana, every slab of stone and splinter of debris folding and rearranging itself into steps.
As they descended, the stair behind them dissolved back into the ground and rubble, resetting itself just in time to avoid being noticed by any of the knights above.
The deeper they went, the dimmer the world became.
Shadows pressed against them from all sides, the air cool and still. Only the faint, steady glow of Keiser's dagger cut through the darkness, runes along the blade shimmering like a thin fire, guiding their steps into the unseen below.
