CHAPTER 797: THE RAVENS CALLED (2)

"Everyone on this road smells like that," Marek answered. "They just hide it better."

"Everyone is lying," Isolde said. "And everyone thinks they’re the only ones who are clever."

Rhaen almost smiled.

"Then we just have to be correct," she said.

By the second night, they left the main road.

Their camp was small and efficient, tucked between low hills where the trees began to grow taller and thicker. They lit no visible fire, only a rune-warmed stone in the centre of their circle, its heat kept low.

The night pressed close. Somewhere an owl called. Farther off, faint lights moved along the main road—other travellers, other schemes.

Rhaen sat with her back to a half-buried rock and spread Kael’s orders on her lap.

The parchment was already worn at the folds. His spare handwriting filled half a page. The other half held a diagram of Ashen River’s known outer shell, copied from League leaks and Technomancer bragging.

Undercover. No insignia. Avoid big pieces. Find overlooked paths.

She traced the lines with a finger.

Better we die once, she thought, than the kingdom dies slowly while the League feeds on its bones.

She folded the parchment again and slipped it into an inner pocket.

Across the camp, Thane knelt in the dirt, rune-sticks in hand, drawing a ghost of their route.

"Mana distortion is heavier here," he murmured, tapping a point. "Technomancer relays. We should not walk where their toys see."

"Then we don’t," Rhaen said. "We cut across the badlands."

Darec grunted approval.

"Less people," he said. "More rocks. Rocks are honest."

"Not these ones," Isolde muttered.

Rhaen lay back, folding her hands behind her head, eyes on the faint flicker of stars.

She thought of Kael’s face when he had said my ravens. He had not smiled, not truly, but something in his eyes had softened.

He pulled us out of mud and gutters. Trained us on lines no one else would walk. If he asks us to walk into a god’s mouth, we walk.

She exhaled slowly.

"Better we die once," she whispered, "than watch Kharadorn kneel."

The others pretended not to hear, but the words settled over the camp like a second blanket.

The badlands were older than the dungeon.

Once, long ago, water had carved deep canyons through the dark rock. Now the riverbeds lay dry and scarred, the stone split and stained by past mana storms.

Rhaen led the way along a narrow ridge, boots crunching on grit. The sun was a pale smear behind thin cloud. The air felt wrong—too still, as if holding its breath.

Tiny motes of light drifted here and there. When Marek reached out to brush one, his fingers met nothing.

"Mana dust," Thane said. "It’s been thicker every mile."

Isolde raised a hand.

"There," she said.

Half-buried in the ravine wall below them, Rhaen saw it: the rusted remains of an old mining marker, its top bent, the faint outline of a pickaxe symbol still visible.

"Old shafts," Isolde said. "From before the dungeon woke. Rumours said there were minor fissures even then."

"Good," Rhaen said. "Fissures can be widened."

They descended the ridge carefully, sliding on loose stone.

At the bottom, the air was cooler. The walls rose steep on either side, pitted and cracked. Thin lines of light crawled along some of the fractures, disappearing when stared at directly.

Thane knelt, pressing his palm to the ground.

"Something here," he murmured.

He drew a quick circle with his rune-sticks and whispered a short chant. Symbols flared to life around his fingers, then sank into the rock.

A point of air three steps ahead shimmered.

"Mana blister," Thane said. "Touch it wrong and it pops."

Korr frowned.

"It’s just air," he said.

Thane shot him a look.

"Air that will break your ribs and throw you into a wall," he said. "Stay clear."

Korr hesitated, then stepped closer anyway, spear extended.

"Korr," Rhaen said warningly.

"I just want to see how bad—"

He poked the shimmering point.

The world snapped.

There was a muffled bang, as if someone had clapped thunder between their hands. A burst of compressed mana exploded outward, flattening the air and sending dust and grit flying.

Spikes of stone erupted from the ground around the blister, jagged and sudden.

Korr’s body jerked.

For a heartbeat, he hung there, skewered through chest and thigh, eyes wide in shock.

Then the mana backlash hit him fully.

His skin took on a pale, glassy sheen. Cracks raced along his limbs. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but the sound shattered with him.

He broke apart like brittle crystal, fragments raining down onto the spikes.

Sera was already moving, lips forming a spell, hands glowing with healing light.

She reached the nearest spike and laid her palm against a shard of Korr’s shoulder.

The light sank in and fizzled uselessly.

Her jaw tightened.

"Gone," she said quietly.

Dust settled.

Rhaen stared at the empty space where Korr had been.

"Lesson learned," Marek said hoarsely.

Sera bowed her head for a heartbeat, whispering a short, harsh prayer. It sounded more like a curse.

Rhaen inhaled slowly, then exhaled.

"No more curiosity," she said, voice flat. "From here on, we move like every rock is trying to murder us. Because it is."

No one argued.

They skirted the edges of the former blister, feet careful, eyes scanning for any hint of shimmer.

The ravine twisted, rising and falling. The low hum in the stone grew stronger.

After an hour, Isolde raised a hand again.

"There," she said.

In the left wall, half-hidden by layers of collapsed rock, a crack glowed faintly from within. The light was not constant; it pulsed, as if something behind the stone breathed.

Rhaen stepped closer.

The air near the crack felt thick, heavy with mana. The hairs on her arms lifted.

"Not the main entrance," Thane said. "Too narrow. But connected."

"A side seep," Irin murmured. "A place where the dungeon’s skin is thin."

Rhaen’s mouth set.

"Then that’s our door," she said.

The crack was barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through sideways.

They stowed anything that rattled or clanked. Demon-steel was strapped tight. Cloaks were bound. Only the essentials stayed at their hips.

Rhaen went first.

The stone pressed in on both sides as she slid into the darkness. Her shoulders scraped rock. Rough edges caught at her coat. The light from outside dimmed quickly, replaced by a faint, cold glow from within the crack itself.

The air was close and damp. Under it, she felt a slow, rhythmic vibration.

A heartbeat.

She swallowed and kept moving.

Behind her, she heard the others follow one by one. Darec’s muttered curses. Thane’s breathy counting as he tracked the pulse. Sera’s soft plea to any listening spirits.

The passage narrowed, then widened just enough to let her turn her head.

The walls here were not normal stone. They were too smooth in some places, too ridged in others, as if half-melted and re-shaped. When she pressed her palm against one, it was warm and faintly yielding.

Thane hissed softly.

"Pressure points," he said. "Like the mana blister, but built into the wall. Put too much force on the wrong spot and it pushes back."

They moved slowly, testing each foothold.

It was Darec, big as he was, who slipped.

His boot came down on a slightly raised ridge. It crunched.

The wall shuddered around them.

Before he could shift his weight, the stone under his foot flexed like muscle.

The ridge slammed upward, snapping his lower leg between it and the ceiling.

Darec roared.

Bone cracked. The sound was wet and ugly.

Sera was on him in an instant, hands pressing against his ruined shin. Light flared around her fingers, wrapping his leg in a tight lattice.

The stone slowly relaxed, releasing him. He sagged against the wall, panting.

"Don’t move," Sera ordered.

He didn’t. Sweat stood out on his brow.

"Shin’s pulverised," she muttered. "I can knit some of it, but it’ll be weaker. You won’t run. You’ll barely walk."

Darec gritted his teeth.

"I’ll walk," he said. "Or crawl. I’m not turning back because a wall tried to eat me."

Rhaen met his eyes.

"You sure?" she asked.

He bared his teeth.

"You’ll need someone to carry you when it gets worse," he said. "That’s usually my job."

Rhaen almost smiled despite herself.

"Fine," she said. "But if you slow us enough to get us killed, I’ll throw you into a monster personally."

He chuckled once.

"Deal."

They continued.

The next threat was quieter.

Ahead, the narrow crack opened into a fork. The left path dipped gently, lit by a faint, inviting glow. The right path was darker, leading upward into shadow.

Thane frowned.

"The air on the left is too smooth," he said.

Isolde peered down both paths.

"The glow is tempting," Marek said. "Which means it wants us."

"Or it’s the right way," Darec muttered.

Thane knelt, pressing his fingers to the floor of the glowing tunnel.

Nothing obvious, no shimmer, no hum.

His jaw tightened.

"Too quiet," he said.

Rhaen picked up a loose stone and tossed it down the left path.

It bounced twice, then vanished.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then from somewhere far away and warped, they heard it scream.

The sound was thin and high and wrong, as if stretched through a dozen mouths.

Sera swallowed.

"Right path it is," Rhaen said.

They scraped a warning rune on the wall near the glowing tunnel: three short cuts, a sign among their kind that meant do not step here ever. Then they climbed into the darker way.

The last barrier before the inner tunnels was something else entirely.

The crack widened for five steps, then narrowed again into a tight, oval opening.

The stone around it was too smooth, almost polished, with faint ridges like cartilage.

Rhaen touched it.

It flexed, just barely, under her fingers.

"This isn’t just rock anymore," Irin said softly. "It’s more like... skin."