Zack’s POV
The mountain was still trembling beneath my boots when silence finally came—an oppressive, suffocating silence broken only by the crackle of burning timbers and the hiss of ichor eating its way into stone. My chest heaved as I fought to draw breath through the reeking fumes. The air was thick, heavy, tasting of rust and rot.
For a long moment, I could only stand there in the ruins of what had been Kieran’s forward nest, staring at the broken stone walls and shattered wards that had once held back the tide. The ichor hadn’t just destroyed his defences—it had unmade them, eating the wards themselves from the inside out. I’d never seen anything like it.
And worse—when the collapse finally thundered down, it wasn’t only his fortress that had fallen. Something older, buried deep b
