The shaft swallowed him.
Dark stone closed around his shoulders, the walls close enough to touch on both sides. The bioluminescent veins pulsed faster now, a rhythm that matched no heartbeat Cael had ever known. The air thickened as he descended, dimensional pressure building the way it built near Fracture boundaries. His ears popped. His ribs throbbed, the old break still mending, each rung of the carved ladder sending a dull ache through his chest.
The Hound was quiet behind his sternum. It had been quiet since the seal's pulse first reached them, the same watchful stillness it wore when it was waiting for him to understand something.
'He's down there,' Cael thought. 'Twenty years. Alone in the dark with a failing seal and a thing that wants to wake.'
The questions churned as he clim
