Chapter 50. The Heart of the Plains

The Grave Plains lay still behind them, but Selene felt the dead's touch linger on her skin like cold mist. Each step forward felt heavier, as if the land itself resisted their passage.

The path twisted downward into a wide, hollowed basin where the mist thinned but the cold deepened. A barren plain stretched below—and at its center, a black pit yawned wide, the very heart of the corruption.

Selene led the way, her senses sharpened to every shifting breeze and distant whisper. Around her, the pack limped and staggered, battered but unbroken. Even the most hardened wolves bore haunted expressions, their eyes darting to every whisper of movement.

As they neared the pit, they saw what waited.

Ruins—ancient, massive, and wrong.

Stone structures older than memory sprawled across the basin floor, cracked and half-buried in ash. Symbols—unfa