The Fourfold Silence

You enter a circular temple chamber where the air tastes of ash, old blood, and cold metal. Four blue flames burn without heat around a black-stone altar, and a silver needle hangs above a bowl of dark red wax. Eight glyphs ring the walls, but only four shine with a dull inner light: a crescent moon, an open eye, a bleeding hand, and a sealed mouth. Behind the altar, a stone reliquary gives a slow, almost imperceptible pulse, as though something inside is breathing.