Danton finally reached an opening near the base of the luminous tree and stopped.
Phei narrowed his eyes from where he, Eira and Consort remained hidden farther along the enormous root-covered heights. From here, the tree looked even less like something that should have existed beneath Anarctica.
Its trunk rose beyond sight, broad enough to swallow cities, while blue-white veins of living radiance travelled beneath its dark bark in slow celestial currents.
Each pulse climbed through the branches overhead and scattered into millions of starry lights, illuminating the hidden realm in a soft sapphire glow that reflected across the river, the bridges and the impossible gardens clinging to the cavern walls— as if an entire night sky had been grown rather than built, and somehow still refused to acknowledge that winter ruled everything above it.
Yet Danton had stopped before something remarkably plain compared with all that grandeur.
A wall.
Or at least Phei assumed it was a wall.
