The air of the ruins' shadow chamber thickens and grows cold as congealing blood. Down the spiraling dark corridors carved into the obsidian walls are runes of ancient and obscene design that throb with an unhealthy violet light, whose eerie glow gives birth to dancing shadows, shadows that eldritch shapes of darkness that leap and dance like loathsome, sentient things. I lean back against Kael, his solid warmth the only thing in this stifling dark. My crescent scar blazes, a brand tattooed into my very soul, a living nightmare tattoo that aches and cries out, a constant terrible reminder of the curse that ties me to this doomed Alpha. And with every pulse, it beats out its sickening bass note to Kael's failing heartbeat, sickening counterpoint to the furious beat of my own.
"Feel that?" Kael whispers, his voice a warm rasp cutting up my spine. His two-storm gray eyes flicker with the changing darkness and claws already out and shiny. "Old magic. Dark magic. She's here."
