The citadel shuddered.
Leon felt it in the soles of his boots as he moved through the eastern archway—a long, slow pulse, like something exhaling beneath the earth. Ashveil thrummed with the same unease. It wasn't fear.
It was anticipation.
Marien's voice echoed behind him as she rallied the Fifth Cohort. The sound grounded him. Steady. Commanding. But as he moved through the inner causeway, every hallway felt narrower than the last.
Something had shifted in the deep.
Not just breached—warped.
By the time Leon reached the first seal chamber, the torches had gone out. The sigils across the archway pulsed red. He slowed.
The door was already open.
The blast marks told the story: a forced entry, but precise. Not brute force. Inside, the stone was scorched black, yet there were no bodies. No signs of resistance.
Only one thing remained.
A mark.
Drawn in soot, across the floor. Not a glyph. Not a sigil. A symbol older than language.
A circle, broken at the edge.
