The mountain air at the edge of the Ironwood forest was thick with the resinous tang of crushed pine needles, damp earth, and ancient stone. Three miles south of the river, deep within a clearing where massive black-grained trunks had been felled by the former Crimson Fang logging crews, lay the entrance to the Sunken Archive.
A wide stone staircase, slick with frost and choked by thick, creeping roots, descended into the dark belly of the mountain ridge.
Torchlight flickered along the damp subterranean walls as Alpha Valen, Nora, and Gamma Torin walked down the stone stairs, escorted by four elite vanguard warriors carrying iron lanterns. The cold down here was different from the howling mountain gale above—it was stagnant, heavy, and smelled of forgotten centuries.
At the bottom of th
