Heart Chamber

Before they left, Marrek knelt in the quiet of the heart chamber, lighting a single veilwick candle before the Tabula Lupina. He spoke not to the others, but to the past. The path back to the heart chamber was not a quiet one. Though they'd crossed these monastery halls before, the air felt sharper now—laden with veil residue, like distant ash hanging in still wind. Lira sat beside the Tabula Lupina, now cleared of dust and debris inside the old monastery’s fractured heart chamber. They had returned here not in search of answers—but in response to something the fragment had whispered during the night. The air outside the heart chamber was cold, but it did little to shake the chill that had settled among them. They had built a small camp in one of the adjoining wings, broken only by shafts of moonlight and the scent of burned sigil-ink from the wards they’d etched into the stone.