The Ancients, Ainsley despaired.
Behind her was a half circle carved into the stone wall, a portal edged with silver and engraved with runes that glowed a sickly green. Directly opposite the portal, on the other side of the room, the thirteenth statue hulked, larger than the rest, and more horrific.
Ainsley gasped as she gazed upon the nightmarish face with its fang-filled maw. The haughty expression and the supercilious stance were familiar to her, dredging terror from the darkest recesses of her memory. The bat-like wings and the curling horns were new, but she remembered clearly the ugly creature from their battle at the palace of Oben-Odi. The thirteenth statue was a near likeness to the creature that Velinor had become, and the deep indentation that looked like a gaping wound in the approximate place where its heart should rest, was filled by the Lyrestone in the chest of the former Lord of Kopeth.
