A Flame in the Shadow
The altered embroidery at my bodice tingles faintly as if it can feel the ritual building around it.
I don’t look at Orion. If I look at him now, I will run. Bastion waits at the center of the circle. Black coat, gold cuffs, and an expression carved into something noble and steady. His left hand hangs relaxed at his side. The glyph is hidden there, the trigger.
Sariyah rises from her throne of carved obsidian behind him. She looks radiant and victorious. Her crown catches the torchlight and scatters it like fractured night.
“You kneel,” she says. There is no cruelty in her tone, only certainty.
Bab Populer