The Temple of Ashes
The darkness within the cavern swallowed every sense of time.
There was no moonlight.
No wind.
Only the steady rhythm of Samael's boots striking the damp stone, and the endless dripping of water.
Water mingled with blood that seeped through the walls in dark veins, as though the earth itself had been wounded and was slowly bleeding to death.
Each step echoed through the darkness, multiplied by the uneven walls until it sounded as though countless others walked behind him.
But Samael knew he was alone.
The forest outside, with its countless corpses and crimson-stained snow, already felt like a distant memory.
A nightmare from which he could not awaken.
The scent grew heavier with every yard.
Iron.
The smell of shattered armor, broken blades, and torn fangs.
Burned feathers.
The acrid odor of scorched plumage and flesh charred by sacred fire.
Ancient magic.
A residue as dense as mist, clinging to his skin and throat, burning his nostrils with its forbidden presence.
It was the scent of something that should never have been disturbed.
Of a power mankind had forgotten to fear.
The farther he walked, the more the narrow passage became a mausoleum.
The first bodies lay near the entrance.
Common rogues.
Foot soldiers sent ahead as bait.
Or as the first line of defense.
Their eyes remained open, staring at the stone ceiling.
Their mouths were frozen in expressions of shock.
Some still clutched their weapons.
Their fingers had already stiffened around the steel, as though not even death had managed to pry them loose.
Then came the veterans.
Massive wolves.
Their bodies marked by scars from wars long forgotten.
They had fallen atop one another like a living wall that had tried to stop someone from advancing.
Their thick hides had been torn apart like parchment.
Samael recognized the wounds immediately.
Claws.
Not the claws of an ordinary wolf.
The claws of something far greater.
Something that wielded fury as its weapon...
and rage as its fuel.
Every one of them was dead.
Every one of them had been cut down with such overwhelming violence that even Samael slowed his pace.
He stopped before one body in particular.
A veteran still kneeling.
His sword buried in the stone.
His head bowed as though in prayer.
The killing blow had entered through his back, pierced his spine, and emerged from his chest.
A swift death.
Efficient.
Merciless.
Elizabeth.
The thought struck him like a blade.
No one broke through a defense of that magnitude alone.
Not even an entire army could have shattered such a line without losing half its strength.
But his daughter...
His daughter had passed through it.
And the marks carved into the walls...
Deep.
Jagged.
Left by desperate human hands...
told the story of how she had done it.
A few more steps.
Something gleamed beneath the blood, catching the reflection of the lingering magical light pulsing through the cavern walls.
He crouched.
A silver plate.
Bent.
Cracked.
The emblem of the Moon was still engraved upon the metal.
Now stained crimson.
Its sacred image almost unrecognizable beneath the layer of dried blood.
Elizabeth's armor.
His fingers slowly closed around the warped piece, feeling the weight of the metal...
and the weight of everything that armor represented.
Farther ahead...
another fragment.
Then another.
A forearm guard.
Pieces of her waist armor.
One of her pauldrons.