Sub-level four smelled like wet stone and regret.
Kael descended the stairs with the mage, six soldiers, and two elders who had insisted on supervising. The insistence had involved Cassia physically blocking the stairwell until Kael agreed to their presence. He agreed in the way a man agrees to a bee sting: by acknowledging it was happening and choosing to stop swatting.
The ward nexus was a chamber roughly the size of the throne room above, carved from the Keep's original foundation stone. Dark sigils covered the walls in concentric circles, pulsing with the same violet-black energy that had sealed the Keep. At the center, five anchor stones the size of a man's head sat on obsidian pedestals, each one thrumming with a low, sour vibration that made Kael's teeth itch.
"Lovely." He studied the array. "Brennan's work. You can tell because the alignment is off by three degrees and the containment sigils are copied from a textbook he clearly skimmed."
