Sylric stepped over. "If you're marked by that thing, we pull back. We regroup. We don't open doors we don't understand."
Lindarion looked up. "We already did."
He pulled the distorted sketch from the ruined camp from inside his coat.
Spread it on a rock.
Everyone looked.
The incomplete rune.
The jagged center.
The black void scratched so hard it tore the page.
Stitch stared. "They weren't sketching it. They were recording it changing."
Luneth stepped in closer. "It's active."
"No mana," Sylric said again.
"Then we're measuring this wrong," she replied.
Lindarion tapped the sketch once.
"This part," he said. "It matches the resonance in my core. I didn't want it to. It just does."
Sylric sat down hard. "So we're dealing with a structure that was carved by someone who doesn't use mana, responds to void affinity, and behaves like a lock."
"Yes," Lindarion said.
Kael cracked his knuckles. "What happens if someone opens it?"
