Zack’s POV
The cavern breathed.
Not in the way stone should, with stillness and silence, but in great ragged exhalations that carried heat, frost, and a taste of copper into my lungs. Each inhale I took filled me with the impression that the rift itself was alive—an ancient lung dragging air in and spitting it out in waves, each pulse rattling the stalactites overhead and sending cracks zigzagging along the basalt walls.
I landed hard on the slick rock, claws digging deep to anchor myself against the blast of warped energy roaring from the fissure at the cavern’s heart. The glow from it wasn’t light; it was wrong, colourless and yet blinding, like the afterimage burned into your vision when lightning exploded too close.
And ringing the rift’s yawning mouth, crawling from the black tunn
