Chapter 21. Blood and Stone

The chamber throbbed with heat and light, the crown suspended in the air like the unblinking eye of a storm. Ash drifted from the vaulted ceiling in slow spirals, and the ground beneath the throne vibrated with a pressure that was not quite sound, not quite movement—only presence. It pressed against the lungs, against the blood, as if the mountain itself were leaning closer to listen.

Behind the throne, the shape unfurled.

It did not emerge so much as resolve into being, smoke thickening into flesh, shadow learning the shape of limbs. It was tall and wrong, its body ignoring the laws that governed bone and muscle. Its legs bent at impossible angles, its form half-veiled in darkness that refused to settle naturally, as though light itself rejected it.

Where a face should have been, there was only a hollow ringed with te