Elira's breath fogged in the chill morning air as she stood in the ruins of the warded room, her boots crunching on splintered stone and scorched ivy. The tower had been closed for decades—centuries, some murmured—and now, after the ritual under the tunnels of stone, its magic was broken like wet paper in a gale.
She could feel it: the gritty feel of magic—raw, primal, and churning—still echoing in the rifts. Magic shock had etched magical glyphs into rocks, and the once-intact door had been ripped apart like having supernatural claws tear at it.
He walked alongside her, strain in his gait, dark cape billows of shadow the morning took. He had been silent since they had come back from the Whispering Crypt. He had not needed to speak. She felt it now more than before—the silent storm in him.
A ring of robed, halowed mentors had circled the wreckage. One, Professor Ilthane, eyes blazing under her cloak of silver hair, stood before Kael with an unyielding expression.
