Varkesh was the first to notice the shift.
The eight-winged Ashen White Serpentes turned toward the distant pressure gathering around Sylas, his black-scaled patches flexing faintly where limbs should have been as a grin spread across his face.
"There he is, the coward finally decided to show himself, and here I was starting to think I'd have to use someone else's spine for floss."
Rathyr's ruby scales brightened as fire rolled beneath them, the Cindermaw genius throwing his head back with a laugh while the air around his jaws shimmered with heat.
"He doesn't look like much from here, but I suppose that only makes it more entertaining, because if this is the human everyone has been crying about, I'd hate to think the Beast Heaven came all this way for nothing."
Beside them, the third Serpentes remained half-submerged in darkness, his body nearly impossible to distinguish from the void except for two pale eyes that narrowed toward Sylas.
