The words hung in the air like a curse already spoken.
"What does the spell require?" Vetra asked, all business now, a general planning a campaign.
Aira consulted the text again, lips moving silently as she read. "Two practitioners, one wielding dark magic, one wielding knowledge of the old flames. Blood sacrifice, at least ten lives given willingly or taken by force, their essence used to crack the seal. And a geographic weak point, somewhere the barrier between their prison and our world is already thin."
"The old geothermal vents," Vetra said immediately. "On the eastern outskirts of the capital. The first settlers built there before they understood the danger, abandoned the district after a collapse. The ground is still warm, still unstable. The barrier there would be like parchment."
"Precisely." Aira's ruined face managed something like approval. "And the timing?"
