Alex’s POV
The temple groaned.
Not the creak of tired stone or the moan of wind slipping through cracks, but a voice. Low. Immense. Ancient. As if the mountain had exhaled for the first time in centuries, roused from slumber by something it could no longer ignore. The sound vibrated through the stone beneath our boots, pulsing through our bones, rattling the very marrow of the earth.
Sasha froze beside me.
So did I.
The air changed. Grew dense. Hot. Pressurized. Not the ordinary heat of a sun-warmed ruin—but something alive. Breathing. Watching. We stood inside the chest of a slumbering god, and its heart had just begun to beat.
She didn’t look at me when she whispered, “Do you feel that?”
I nodded once, my jaw clenched. “I feel them.”
And like a beast answering its name, the temp
