The Shade Lord and the Ember King descended upon the chamber like twin cataclysms.
Their arrival was not announced by words or war cries. It was announced by pressure—a crushing, suffocating weight that pressed down on the air itself. The shadows in the room deepened, stretching and writhing as the Shade Lord's formless body consumed the light.
His presence was a void, a hunger that drank the warmth from the air. The temperature spiked, the stone beneath the Ember King's feet cracking and glowing with trapped heat. Rivers of molten light pulsed through his cracked skin like veins of liquid fire.
Maldred saw them and felt a flicker of relief.
Despite everything—despite the centuries of betrayal, and the endless hunger that had driven hi to cheat the cycle—he knew that their hatred for the Marrow was greater than their hatred for him.
