The silence after the collapse was worse than the fall itself.
Aurelia lay still on cold stone, breathing shallowly, every nerve screaming as if the world had tried and failed to tear her apart. The darkness around her was not complete; faint veins of dim light pulsed through the rock beneath her, slow and rhythmic, like a buried heart.
She opened her eyes.
The ceiling was impossibly high, arched like the inside of a ribcage carved from stone. Ancient symbols crawled across it, fractured and half-erased, glowing weakly as though struggling to remember their purpose.
She pushed herself up with a hiss of pain.
Her body felt… wrong.
Not broken.
Not whole.
Different.
Aurelia lifted her hands. The shadows did not flee her touch anymore. They clung obediently, waiting. When her pulse sp
