"Do you feel that? It's… humming again."
Magnolia's voice echoed along the damp corridor as they descended the spiral stone stairway. The air grew colder with every step, thick with the scent of moss, old blood, and something unspoken, something that did not belong to the world above.
Camille walked ahead, her torchlight catching the carvings on the walls, ancient glyphs etched by claw and bone. Her shoulders were squared, but the tremble in her hand betrayed her.
"That's not humming," she said. "That's breathing. This place is alive."
The stairway spilled into a vast underground chamber, and the two sisters paused at the threshold. The hollow beneath the estate stretched wide like the ribcage of a buried beast, arched stone columns rose from the earth, holding the weight of generations, and along the walls, names had been carved in long-forgotten dialects. The names of the condemned. The traitorous. The cursed.
Magnolia narrowed her eyes. "This was never a sanctuary."
