The underground corridor was tighter than Eclipse remembered. The air carried a damp, metallic tang, and somewhere beneath the faint torchlight, a low vibration pulsed through the walls—steady, almost like a heartbeat. Something ahead was alive. Waiting. Damp stone walls flanked them on both sides, breathing cold into the air, and the floor sloped just enough to make him uneasy with every step.
"This is the same path," Eclipse muttered, barely audible.
Valeria followed behind him in silence, the rhythm of her boots a half-beat behind his—soft but deliberate, like restrained tension echoing through stone. Each step tapped out the sound of focus barely holding back the tremor of worry. Neither of them spoke. There was no need. Not yet.
A distant clang echoed from deeper inside the catacombs—a sound that triggered more than instinct. It triggered memory.
