They kept walking, and Mia did a better job avoiding the remnants. Some of them managed to speak, but the words were garbled nonsense. Mostly. She did her best to ignore the ones that called out names, or for their mom or dad, but underneath the half choked, half screamed noise, she heard them.

Eventually the tunnel opened up more, and the amount of remnants nearby dropped off to almost nothing. No longer a tunnel, but a full cave, big and open, with an enormous throne in the back center.

The decoration motif went from bad to worse. A few remnants grew out of the stone ceiling above, but a...