The march began in silence, broken only by the groan of the world beneath us. The Shadow World no longer felt like ground but like the inside of a wound—raw, pulsing, bleeding shadowfire through every fissure. Each step was a gamble, each breath laced with ash and whispers.
Chasms yawned where plains had once been, rivers boiled backward into molten streams that stank of scorched iron. Wolves stumbled, their paws blistering on the cracked earth. Even the strongest of the Ironsworn bled from their oath-scars, thin trails of crimson running like ink across their armor. The Drakhen wheeled overhead, wings shaking, their flight paths shattered by the broken currents of shadow-wind.
I felt it then—Veyrathuun's hunger—rippling through my veins like fire that wasn't mine. Every faltering step, every soldier's cry, every heart breaking beneath this sky fed him. His voice slithered through the air, low and endless, carried by the shudder of the land:
