We followed Corvus through the doorway into the Den's core.
The passage was narrow, carved from bone that pressed close on all sides, the walls smooth as ivory and cold enough to leech warmth from the air. The air tasted of old dust and copper, thick enough to coat my tongue. I could see inscriptions in the surface, names and dates and final words etched in a script that seemed to shift when I looked directly at it. The bones of wolves who'd failed the Den before us.
Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands. All part of the structure now, their final moments preserved in calcium and marrow.
The passage opened into a vast circular chamber. The ceiling was too high to see, disappearing into shadow that seemed to move and breathe. The floor was polished bone, smooth and slick, reflecting the crimson light filtering from somewhere above like blood through water. And the walls...
