Chapter 16: The Whispering Bones of the Ancients

Darkness had teeth.

Not the kind that gnawed at the flesh, but the kind that chewed on memory slowly, methodically, until it left only dust where once there was light.

Yousef stood now in a forest older than time, a place known in myth as Yaldhar’s Hollow, where the bones of gods were said to sing beneath the roots. Every tree was twisted into a scream, e…