"Phase two? What do you mean?" Thomas's voice came strained through the haze of clashing spells and howling roots.
"You'll see," Ludwig answered. He didn't look back. His eyes were locked on the grotesque shape writhing before him. Slowly, step by step, he began to back away from the Queen, boots crunching over splintered bark and debris scattered across the blood-slick ground. Each step felt as if it dragged a phantom weight behind it.
Then, without warning, the Queen's mournful hymn faltered, cracking in the middle of a note like brittle glass. It ceased entirely, and in its place came a soul-wrenching scream. A raw, primal shriek that shivered the very bones of the cavern. She clutched at her head, clawed fingers digging into the sides of her faceless skull as if trying to hold it together. The noise echoed like the cry of a thousand voices caught in torment, building in volume until the very roots that coiled and slithered around the chamber began to tremble in resonance.
