The world split beneath their feet.
Bone crumbled away into ash, leaving only fissures of molten light spreading like veins across the dark. The Gate—the true Gate—was waking, and it was not the robed figure they had destroyed. That had only been a sentinel. A shadow.
This was deeper. Older. Alive.
Draven yanked Elaria against his chest as the floor pitched, dragging them toward the widening chasm. The flame underneath surged upward like a volcanic heart, and his claws peeled at pieces of bone, anchoring them. The air became dense and heated, with a metallic flavor of ash and blood.
Elaria’s lungs seized. Even her wolf's defiance faltered as it hissed inside her, fur bristling. Something that was not composed of flesh or shadow was rising from below. It was hunger.
"What is it?" Cl
