When the voice behind the door spoke for the second time, the air inside the corridor shifted. Something warm mixed with the smell of rusted iron, old stone, and frozen water. That warmth was not like real fire. It was more like a very old memory being lit again inside the wrong body.
"Brother, can you hear me?"
Kael's entire body had locked in place. Elara heard the change in his breathing. She was close enough to see how he clenched his teeth to keep himself from answering, how the muscles beneath his shoulders tightened. The sentence above the door still stood in the rust with the same coldness.
Do not answer the fire.
Rowan spoke very quietly. "Kael, do not answer."
Kael's gaze did not leave the door. "That is his voice."
The mockery on Talon's face had vanished. "The voice may belong to him. But the owner of the voice may not be him."
