Chapter 86: The Heart of the Hum
The stairs did not end. They spiraled down into the mountain's gut, the worked stone of the fortress foundations giving way to older, rougher tunnels that smelled of wet rock and something else ozone and a cold, mineral tang. The grinding hum was no longer just a sound; it was a pressure that made their teeth ache and their thoughts feel gritty. Elara's mage-light, usually a steady silver-white, flickered uneasily, tinged with an amber echo from the residual warmth of Aurora's magic on her skin.
Kaelen moved with the controlled silence of a predator, but his eyes weren't scanning for physical threats. He was watching the walls. Carvings began to appear, faint and worn: spirals that mirrored the stairway, interlocking loops, and stylized figures with hands over their ears and mouths agape in silent screams. The iconography of the Monastery of Listened Dreams.
