The air in the subterranean chamber felt thin, lacking the density of mortal breath. Malphas watched his hand, the fingers now translucent, revealing the pulsing network of ley-lines beneath the stone floor. He was no longer just a man holding a position. He was the architecture itself. Beside him, Lyra shimmered like heat haze on a desert road, her presence tethered to his by a fraying thread of desperate intent.
"The swarm is retreating," Lyra murmured, though her voice seemed to resonate from the walls rather than her throat. She stared at the map on the altar, where the glowing blue veins had reclaimed the tunnels, pushing the crimson rot of Valerius’s intrusion back into the abyss. "They recognize the cost of the ground we walk on now. They fear the blood we spilled."
"They don't fe
