The runes lining Beli's collar gave a single pulse.
Just one. No flare. No sound. Only the faint ripple in the weight of the air, as though something ancient had shifted one vertebra closer to waking.
Then the door opened.
And Beli stepped into the hall.
He did not stride like a man, nor glide like a phantom. His movements were controlled, without waste. Each step fell with mechanical grace, as if the floorboards had been waiting to receive him. The lanternlight slid across the curves of his armor like water across obsidian, catching the shimmer of glass-threaded arrays etched into every inch of his form. Beneath the high black bone of his half-skull helm, two horns curled like written curses, and behind the pale glow of his chest, a beastcore pulsed with a light not born of this age.
Admiral Bovras shifted. The creak of his coat. The scuff of his boots adjusting. His posture locked like a door bracing for storm.
