"Trust me."
I offered no response, allowing silence to serve as both agreement and quiet skepticism.
The deeper we traveled, the colder it became, as if the life itself was slowly draining from the fortress walls. Crystal conduits above glowed dimly, their illumination a ghostly blue-white, bathing everything in a spectral hue. The patterns of leyline energy pulsing along them grew steadily more complex, intertwining in patterns I had only seen referenced in forbidden texts—patterns explicitly tied to the darker arts of necromancy.
Still, Asterion moved with calm, measured purpose, each turn, each step a subtle confession of his true knowledge. He navigated these forbidden corridors with practiced ease, his fingers brushing against warded walls just long enough to trigger minor deactivation runes. Each moment reinforced my suspicion into certainty. He knew precisely where we were headed—and he intended me to see it.
