The portal opened and spat me out onto stone that had never been cold.
I knew it the instant my boots met the ground—the rock vibrated with heat from below, a slow insistent pulse like a heartbeat that had forgotten it was supposed to be subtle.
The air hit me a half-second later, and I had just enough time to register the temperature before it became the only thing in the world.
Every breath tasted of sulfur and scorched iron and the deeper mineral bite of ancient volcanic stone, the kind of smell that went back further than any building's memory.
I activated Unspoiled Farsight before I took another step.
The image assembled itself from the anchor spreading outward, and I let out a breath the heat immediately reclaimed.
This place was built inside an active volcano, or with one—the distinction barely mattered because the boundary between the two had long since dissolved into something collaborative.
