Alyannah's chamber was no longer silent.
The walls, once covered in dormant runes and curling sigils, now pulsed like veins, their dark lines shifting and writhing beneath the surface like they were alive. The stone beneath Alyannah's bare feet was hot, thrumming with infernal magic, as if the very stone making up the lair was infused with blood. The air shimmered with heat, the oxygen tasting scorched and wrong. The portal's breath came in slow, wheezing pulses, inhaling life from the space around it and exhaling whispers thick with hunger.
