Chapter 91

Zarek

The mountain has a heartbeat.

If you are quiet long enough, you can hear it—slow, heavy, older than language. It moves through the stone and the veins of molten rock beneath my feet, a rhythm that has nothing to do with life and everything to do with hunger.

I stand at the edge of the central forge and let the heat roll up around me. The ceiling arches into darkness, the walls still marked b