Lucien stood in the center of a junction that had not existed three minutes ago. To his left, the passage smelled of stagnant water and ancient, forgotten rot; to his right, a dry, metallic heat radiated from the stones, smelling of scorched iron and ozone. The very air was thick, tasting of copper and despair.
"The geometry is shifting again," Lucien murmured, his voice sounding hollow and alien in the oppressive, velvet silence. He looked toward the shadow-dampened cell where Kaelen leaned heavily against the bars. "He isn't just keeping us here as trophies, Kaelen. He's trying to drive us mad. He wants us to become ghosts before we're even dead."
Kaelen's silver eyes, usually bright with the untamed ferocity of the moon, were dimmed, clouded by a haze of agonizing fatigue. The silver-lined walls acted like a slow-acting, systemic poison to his Lycan physiology.
