The cavern trembled again.
Dust sifted from the ceiling in pale streams. One of the floating light artifacts flickered violently before stabilizing. The sound came a second later, deep beneath the stone, a slow impact that rolled upward through the earth like the heartbeat of something enormous.
Kaelen felt it through the soles of his boots.
Every seal practitioner in the chamber went rigid.
One of the younger awakeners swallowed hard enough for the sound to carry through the silence. Another tightened his grip around a silver engraving tool until his knuckles whitened.
Then the crack split wider.
Black mist leaked upward from the opening in slow curling tendrils, the air changed instantly, the smell hit first, wet earth mixed with rot and something metallic underneath, sharp enough to settle against the back of the throat like poison. Kaelen tasted copper on his tongue.
The older seal master nearest the edge stumbled backward.
