The air behind me pulsed with something wrong.
Asterion and I moved, swift but measured, our boots scraping against damp stone as we threaded our way through the collapsing ruin. The thing in the shadows—a half-formed apparition, neither fully real nor entirely illusion—whispered at our backs. It flickered in and out of form, a crawling amalgamation of void-dark tendrils and faceless half-shapes that seemed to strain against the very fabric of existence. Each time it almost took shape, it unraveled again, caught in some unseen force that refused to grant it full passage into this world.
We didn't have time to decipher what it was. Only time to leave.