The entrance to the Labyrinth of Bone was not a door, but a gullet. As we stepped through the arched leviathan's jaw, the violet-tinted moonlight was swallowed by a thick, oily darkness that tasted of old copper and the dry, acrid scent of ancient despair. The Living Silver of Kaelum's sacrifice, now a shimmering, mercury-like film over my obsidian shard and Kaelen's staff, provided the only illumination. It cast a soft, rhythmic glow against the walls, revealing that they were not merely made of bone, but of layers of history. Thousands of skulls were pressed into the marrow-cement, their empty sockets looking toward the center of the mountain with a silent, terrifying expectancy.
The Dead-Zone had intensified. Within the gullet of the mountain, the vacuum of magic was so dense it felt like a physical weight pressing against my eardrums. I could hear the frantic, uneven thudding of my own heart, and through the silver-bonded mind-link, I felt the struggle of the others.
