Even the troll warriors surrounding them seemed unsettled by that.
Torvik looked openly fascinated.
“That is either beautiful or horrifying,” Aphid muttered.
“Yes,” Verna answered quietly.“It is.Or, horrifyingly beautiful.”
Kara narrowed her eyes on the elder.“I really like you, until you say crap like that.Then I’m like, look at that creepy troll lady.She should sit on a pencil.”
Apparently, this did not offend Verna in the least.She simply laughed.“Oh child, it is good to have new blood in the family.Someone with some sass.”
“I’ll show you sass,” Kara muttered under her breath as they continued forward.
The tunnel opened abruptly several minutes later.
Kara stopped so fast that Nick nearly walked into her.
“Oh,” she breathed.
The cavern beyond dwarfed everything they’d seen so far.
Massive stone columns stretched upward into darkness so deep the ceiling vanished entirely from sight.The floor beneath them spread outward in enormous circular layers carved directly into the mountain itself, descending step by step toward a vast abyss at the center of the chamber.
And suspended above that abyss ...
Light.
Not crystal light.
Not fire.
Something else.
Silver and gold threads spiraled upward through the darkness like veins of living starlight woven directly into the air itself.They moved slowly, pulsing faintly in uneven rhythms that immediately reminded Kara of heartbeats.
Except parts of the light were wrong.
Black fractures spread between the glowing strands like cracks through glass.
The corruption.
Only now Kara understood what she was actually seeing.
Not infection.
Damage.
The foundations themselves were breaking.
Nick swore softly beside her.
Even Wadim had gone completely silent.
The Troll King descended the first massive stone step into the chamber below.“This place existed before the realms separated fully from one another.”
Kara barely heard him.
The light suspended above the abyss pulled at something deep inside her chest hard enough to ache.
