Chapter 166: When the Malika Chose to End

[Beneath Zahryssar — The Serpents’ Den — Midnight]

The city slept, but beneath it something else woke . Deep below the veins of Zahryssar, where roots strangled stone and secrets rotted in patient silence, the serpents gathered, not nobles, not soldiers, but those who listened where others did not—who watched where others feared to look.