The hidden seam yawns wider, and Dax steps into the heart of the castle. The same golden veins he saw in the swamp now run under these stones, bright as fever under cracked floorboards.
The floor pulses once, then splits. Viscous gold seeps up through the fractures like blood drawn from the land itself, and the chamber answers with a low, hungry hum.
The Exiled Prince freezes as the pulse matches his heartbeat. Heilyn stares at the veins, the pattern clicking into place. This is no stain, it is a harvest.
Heilyn
The castle is being turned into fuel.
Dax and his companions reach the chamber's edge as the golden light crawls toward the next sealed arch. The way forward does not open for free, it waits for witness, for price, for challenge.
The Exiled Prince
Then let it demand its final bargain. We are here now.
The stones shiver. From somewhere deep in the walls, the castle's old witness presses back, and the bleeding path trembles between sealing and opening.
Sever the castle's golden harvest