Chapter 117 - Secrets in Stone

The sound that filled the Hall was not the roar of battle. It was not the clang of steel clashing with steel, nor the ragged gasps of soldiers locked in desperate struggle. It was smaller than that, quieter — yet older, deeper, and infinitely more dangerous. It was the whisper of dust shifting in the unseen corners of the chamber, the soft sigh of chains swaying against one another in an air that carried no wind, the slow, deliberate groan of ancient stone settling in its foundations. The Hollow was moving. Not with the wild fury of an army's charge, but with the patient, unhurried hunger of something that had been here long before armies were even conceived. The Hall did not merely stand around those who entered; it leaned in, its vast walls tilting in invisible increments, its arches bowing low, its long strands of chain bending toward the center as if straining to hear a confession.