A heart beats in ready rhythm. Alone in the dark, it pounds - slowly, at first, and then more swiftly. Breath catches, pupils dilated. Panic coils close, thrumming a rapid pulse, seizing on the promise of forgotten hope, abandoned prayer. The temperature rises. Darkness falls.

Slowly, steadily, the veins of Cyrileth flow from the mountains to the sea. The waters are ever-moving, ever-changing, and in their journey carry blood both brackish and strange. Distinctive mangrove trees hunch over the serpentine rivers, pressed close and cloying to their fellows. The trees carve natural furrows in the landscape, and the shallow water flows between them obligingly. Flying buttresses arch over the surface of the too-still surface, roots both tangled and twisted. Young fish and crustaceans seek shelter in the shadow of the trees, but it is that which braves the deeper waters, and the higher reaches, that prevents any wolf from lingering overlong.

Serpents swim, and larger scaled specimens coil around the upper branches. Large, lethal felines stalk the shrouded depths. Monsters, armored and reptilian, lurk in the deep, emerging to warm themselves on the sunlit banks. Any and all creatures are fair game for these more devoted predators, and the night takes on a particular cadence of desperation.

Abandon Hope, All ye who enter here.