"The most dangerous thing in the dark isn't what you can see. It's what's looking at you when you can't see it back."
***
The air changed the moment Team Seven crossed into the Collapsed Mine section.
What had been merely stale tunnel atmosphere transformed into something that made Rhys Blackwood's borderland instincts scream warnings his teammates couldn't hear.
He paused at the threshold. His calloused fingers tightened around his father's spear as his nostrils flared.
The scent hit him hard.
Metallic and coppery, yes. But underneath that lay something far worse. Decay. Old blood. The sickly-sweet smell of things that should have been buried long ago.
It was the kind of stench that clung to battlefields three days after the fighting had ended. When the crows had grown fat and lazy and the ground had drunk its fill.
His stomach turned, but he forced the reaction down. You didn't survive a decade on the border by letting your guts make decisions for you.
