KAEL'S POV
The ground trembled like a living thing, the air thick with sulfur and frost all at once. I could taste the rot, feel the pressure building beneath us. This wasn't like the shadows Ayla had obliterated—it was worse. Older. Hungrier.
Ayla clutched my arm, her silver-lit eyes widening. "Kael…" Her voice was a whisper, yet it echoed with dread. "That isn't just shadow magic. That's primordial."
Primordial. The word struck me harder than any blade. Legends whispered of beings who existed before kings, before wolves, before flame and moonlight itself. Entities bound in the deep earth, chained by gods long forgotten.
And one of them was clawing its way up.
The crack widened, vomiting black fire into the night sky. The flames weren't heat but cold, searing the marrow in my bones. A shape coalesced—taller than any man, its body a twisting mass of ash and obsidian, its eyes glowing like molten gold buried under centuries of decay.
It smiled.
