The vessel bloodlines are responding.
This sentence burning above the Body Room did not look as if it had been written on stone. It opened more like a wound left inside the room. Pale lights seeped from the edges of the letters. They were not red. They were not moonlight. They were not orange either. They were the color of an old, tired, and very distant echo.
The first scream from behind the outer doors was heard again.
Elara's entire body tightened.
This scream was not inside the room. It was not behind the tunnels either. The sound seemed to have been torn from the dream of someone living very far away and dragged here by force. It was not close, but it was real. It had come from the throat of a body. Someone's sleep, someone's blood, someone's name had been shaken by this call.
Talon's face went chalk-white. "That sound is not here."
