"…Let's go."
Princess Celestia rose, still trembling from the shock but resolved. "We can't stop here — not after what we learned."
Her eyes were like cracked glass: fractured, but catching the light all the same; whatever had broken her, it also made her burn brighter.
"…Yes." Elisha and Mariella straightened, faces set. They fell into step behind Lucien.
They didn't have to walk far. The door opened onto a room that smelled faintly of ozone and old blood. Rows upon rows of glass cylinders lined the chamber, each one holding something between sleep and rot. They took human shapes but weren't human—twisted, pallid forms suspended in viscous fluid, veins like black filigree, mouths slack and wrong.
"Oh."
