MINE BEFORE THE BLOOD MOON
The eyes opened fully. Gold. Ancient gold. Brighter than moonlight, brighter than fire, brighter than anything mortal should have been capable of holding. The cavern froze. No one moved. No one breathed. Even the mountain seemed to fall silent, waiting, watching, listening. The enormous eyes blinked once, slowly, and a pressure unlike anything I had ever experienced swept through the ruins. It wasn't power. Not exactly. Power could be resisted, fought, endured. This was authority. The kind woven into the bones of the world itself.