The group ascended the steps—each forged from rippling shadow—with slow, cautious movements.
Every step closer to the church, an invisible weight settled heavier on their shoulders. Nausea twisted in Lucy's gut, and judging by the expressions around him, he wasn't alone. The air grew colder, the atmosphere more suffocating, and the whispers, still inaudible in sound, grew deafening in sensation. They didn't hear them; they felt them. Like claws scraping against their minds.
'This has to be where they're coming from,' Lucy thought grimly as he and Bruma reached the final step.
The front of the church loomed above them.
Like the rest of the structure, the door was cloaked in a thick veil of shadow, impossibly dark. It towered over even Bruma's massive frame, ending in a jagged oval arch just above her head. The surface was smooth but pulsed faintly, as if alive, breathing in slow, dreadful rhythm.
Lucy turned. The rest of the cohort had made it up the steps.
