The moment Lucian and Lucy crossed the surface of the gate, the world twisted.
For an instant, everything stretched—their bodies, their shadows, even their breath—like strings being pulled through glass. Then it snapped, and the two landed hard on jagged stone.
The air here was wrong. Heavy. It pressed down on their lungs like smoke. The sky overhead wasn't a sky at all—it was cracked red, stitched with black lightning that crawled endlessly across it. Mountains of bone and broken obsidian jutted from the ground in twisted shapes, and from the fissures between them, came sound.
Growls. Screeches.
The ground trembled beneath their boots.
Lucian exhaled once, calm. His cloak settled against him as his eyes adjusted to the dark. "This is it."
