IT FELT like ages before we stopped, but it only took an hour. The closer we got, the more I had the urge to turn around. My gut was sending me all kinds of warning signals. The black aura ahead of us that grew bigger with every passing second only made that feeling worse.
Had I really seen that bright white aura in all this darkness?
The sect’s compound was small, with only one narrow, dead-end dirt road that ran among a cluster of old stone buildings. The only thing that identified it was the sign on the side of the road. It was a tiny rectangle, almost completely covered by moss and dirt, but I could just make out the name. Not that it helped me identify the place. The word was long and unpronounceable, with way too many consonants.
From what I could see, there were four bigger struc
