Chapter 46. Hollow Thrones

The temple was not built. It had been grown. Or shaped. Or remembered from some half-forgotten dream. Aeryn stood at its threshold, where no map dared venture and no pack claimed dominion. The ancient forest here had drawn back its branches like a velvet curtain, revealing a ruin that thrummed with living roots and stone—pillars braided by tanglewood, arches half-swallowed by velvet green moss, all illuminated by pale ribbons of dawn that pierced the canopy high above.

There were no walls to speak of, no doors carved of oak or iron. Instead, twelve thrones rose from the earth in a wide, silent circle, each hewn from the ribcage of something enormous and long dead. The curved bones were bound in thick, sinuous vines whose leaves never yellowed or rotted, their emerald coils clinging like watchful serpents.

On each throne a strange symbol had been etched: a sun drawn in three concentric lines that seemed to shimmer in the gloom; a single fang enclosed within a perfect circ