Alyannah stood in the center of her underground stronghold, surrounded by silence that wasn't empty. It was listening.
The runes etched into the walls pulsed faintly, flickering like dying coals. The once-familiar hum of the feral link, her tether to the beasts she'd called back into sleep, was changing. Warping.
She pressed a palm against the obsidian altar. The connection surged through her like static, but something was wrong.
She reached deeper, into the places where her monsters slumbered. "Wake," she whispered, pushing her will into the old blood.
One stirred.
Then another.
But a third… resisted.
It was buried deep in the roots of a northern forest. Older than the rest. More beast than soul, one of the Firstborns. She reached for it, curling her power like claws.
"Obey," she commanded.
The response was not obedience. It was laughter. Low and broken, like dry leaves scraping across bone.
Alyannah recoiled.
