I descended the spiral stairs one careful step at a time, my hand dragging along the rough wall for balance. Each breath came out as white mist in the freezing air.
The lantern had been destroyed during the Wight fight. So I'd conjured a small sphere of mana instead, holding it in my palm like a pale ghost light.
It wasn't much. Barely bright enough to see three steps ahead. But it was something.
The temperature dropped with every step downward. Frost crept along the walls in delicate crystalline patterns that caught the mana light, making them shimmer like frozen lightning.
My legs shook with exhaustion. My head still pounded from the neural damage. Everything hurt.
But I kept moving.
Then the sphere in my palm flickered.
I stopped, watching it waver like a candle flame in wind.
No. No, hold it together—
Whoosh!
The mana dispersed, plunging me into suffocating darkness.
"Fuck!"
I groaned, my legs shaking, muscles screamed in protest, but I forced myself to straighten.
