The air itself pressed against Shellia's lungs like thick tar. Her eyes flickered across the once-sacred chamber of Caelthas's church. Statues of angels and flowing winds had been warped, their once-white marble now spiderwebbed with veins of shadow. The scent of burnt incense clashed with a sharp, metallic tang of corruption, stabbing at her senses.
Kaelin's ears twitched first, her fox tail stiff behind her. "Something's wrong. Something's very wrong." Her hand went to the hilt of her sword, eyes narrowing like a predator catching the scent of blood.
And then—three priests stepped forward from the shadows. Their robes once embroidered with silver and blue shimmered now with cracks of red corruption, glowing veins crawling across the fabric as if the very cloth had been consumed. Their eyes blazed scarlet—red like the corrupted beasts and spirits Shellia had purified before. But seeing that same hatred, that same demonic glow, in human eyes was different. It was wrong.
