She had always been accustomed to splendour. Khal-Drathir was known as the jewel of the South, where fountains of glass-like water sang in aurate plazas adorned with mosaics of glittering stones.
But nothing could compare to the claustrophobic oppressiveness she felt as she walked down the corridors of the Palace. Every glint of light seemed sharpened to perfection, ready to strike.
Every shadow seemed alive, shifting like something breathing beneath dark water. The Imperial Guards beside her looked inhuman, as though golems given life by that same light.
She cast her gaze downward. After a full month of darkness, the chilling sun of the Empire was the last thing she would have wanted to suffer through. But even the stones bore that same blinding white found in every corner of this mausoleum.
No cracks could be found. It was as if emptiness itself had made its abode here, and timelessness had pitched its tent over it.
Her stitches had closed, but the wounds beneath still ached at the seams. Each step pulled at her side, a dull pain anchoring her to that field of mud.
Her birthday had come and gone in this month, and with it, the world’s gift had been given: a man of blood and ruin.
She clenched her jaw.
This perverse hymn would end today. She had been summoned to where he was.
The rattling of chains stopped before the doors of the Council. One of the guards struck ground with his halberd.
“Priscilla of Khal-Drathir,” the other cried aloud.
The door opened. Cold shafts of light struck her like blades, and she entered the War Council chamber.
Iron bit against her wrists, their weight dragging at the supple cords beneath. She had worn his restraints for a month. Now she wore the Empire’s also.
The two guards flanked her, halberds crossed behind her back, forcing her stride to match theirs.
Each step rang with the metal chime of a prisoner’s eulogy. The Seneschals straightened in their seats, twelve brocaded predators watching her approach.
She did not lower her gaze.
Below him, at the heart of the chamber, the Lord Commander sat with his back to her, shoulders rigid as splintered masonry.
The guards stopped her three paces behind his chair.
“Priscilla of Khal-Drathir,” the Emperor began, “you stand before the throne of Valekyr and its War Council.”
He let silence settle over them all before resuming.
“The Lord Commander’s report depicts you as a survivor of the city’s fall. A witness to a new type of curse mark. Do you find yourself in any of these?”
She drew a slow breath, chains whispering against themselves.
“I do.”
A faint stir moved through the benches, murmurs breaking out before dying in their throats completely.
“Then speak. How did you survive?”
Priscilla’s jaw tightened once more. She said nothing for a moment.
“I hid,” she spoke at last. “At first.”
“When the houses burned, I hid beneath crupled stones and shattered timber. When the stones cracked, I hid beneath the dead. When hiding was no more, I ran for the fields.”
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Her voice wavered a fraction, then steadied, as though the falter had never been.
“What then?” the Emperor asked.
She curled her fingers involuntarily around her restraints.
“Then I was taken.”
The words fell flat, stripped of meaning.
“For a while,” she continued, voice low, “I became something less than person.”
A breath.
“The Lord Commander simply arrived before it was finished.”
Silence descended like heavy cloth upon the chamber for a time. Even the Seneschals did not move.
“That will suffice,” the Emperor’s voice was still as distant thunder. “You will speak no further of this matter.”
She inclined her head.
“As you command, Your Majesty.”
When she lifted her gaze, she saw his face once more. For an instant, a flicker passed behind the Emperor eyes. Something that might have been sadness, pity perhaps.
It was gone as quickly as it came.
“Describe the circle.”
“I cannot, I never saw it.”
A stir passed through the crescent. Caellis drew his fingers in.
“I was not in the Bastion before, during or after the siege,” she continued. “I was in the city proper. But in the weeks preceding the fall, there were too many wagons coming and going.”
The Emperor did not interrupt. Neither did the Seneschals.
“They were merchant wagons,” she said, “or appeared to be. Most bore markings for grain, timber, or stone. All of them were heavily laden.”
Her brow furrowed slightly.
“But no one truly knew how honest those sigils were. At night, a stench would sometimes rise from some unseen quarter of the city, sharp enough to wake those who slept lightly like myself.”
A breath.
“And when the siege began, they stopped coming. As if everything they required had already been delivered.”
“Whose sigils were they?” the Emperor asked, his hands folding before him.
“The usual merchant houses already operating within Khal-Drathir’s territory,” she replied. “No one questioned them since the trust was already there and the people thought of it as simple war preparation, nothing more.”
The Emperor leaned back in his seat.
“I understand.”
He regarded her a moment longer, as though studying a blade for faults.
“Then tell me, Priscilla of Khal-Drathir,” he said at last, “why does the Lord Commander judge you possibly hex-stained if the circle itself was never within your sight or reach?”
She hesitated.
“That might be because of the Crag and what he saw when we went through it.”
The benches almost erupted at the mention of the Crag.
The Emperor glanced toward Alric before turning to her once more.
“Explain.”
“The day after the city’s conquest, we travelled four days north. We reached its entrance at the eve of the fifth. Its boundary was set in stone. Even the bark of the trees thinned there, as though alive but already dying. The Lord Commander gave a final address to steady the men before we entered. And when we did,” she faltered, only for a moment. “We became as dolls.”
The chamber seemed to chill, yet none present dared look away.
“Inert,” she continued, “as if stripped of emotion and will. I remember seeing the silhouettes of thousands upon thousands of crows, hanging limp with their heads inverted.”
She lowered her voice.
“Then I forgot who I was.”
A pause.
“I cannot speak further of what occurred within. I was not myself, and I remember no passage of time. I remember only waking after we had crossed it, after the Lord Commander had acted. Whatever he did, the hold was broken.”
She regarded the Emperor unflinchingly.
Forest met twilight.
“That is all I know of the Crag, and all I can say of its effect upon me and the legions.”
No one spoke after her. Gold-threaded banners stood unmoving above the crescent, dulled to pale suggestion by light’s angled strike.
The Seneschals remained seated beneath them, motionless, their crimson hats staining the tapestry like drops of old blood. None dared speak before the regent, not when he himself had conducted the questioning.
Alric did not move either. The weight of his tunic pressed heavy upon him, as though it had shrunk in size while doubling in mass. He measured every breath, governed each movement. Too shallow, and it would read as dread. Too deep, and it would read as weakness.
He kept his gaze forward, toward the throne. There he saw only violet, gold and light, coalescing into one single presence until the chamber fell away and he and the Emperor remained. In that narrowing, he understood in his marrow how true authority had no need to raise its voice to be absolute.
Only when the silence became unbearable did the Emperor lean forward slightly, inclining his head to the soldiers at the chamber’s edge.
“You have answered what can be answered,” he said. “That is enough.”
A pause.
“Priscilla of Khal-Drathir will be placed under imperial supervision until further determination.”
The guards stepped forward, halberds locking behind her shoulders.
The Emperor did not look after her as she was led from the chamber.
His gaze settled on Alric alone.
The doors shut behind her with the same dull thud that had followed Molvane.
Silence reclaimed the room once more, the air pressing thick against the seamless walls of ivory splendour.
“Lord Commander,” the Emperor said at last, breaking the quiet, “you remain as the only man to have acted within the Hollow Crag.”
Alric clenched his jaw a fraction.
“Tell me, Lord of War,” he continued, voice as iron.
“What did you see?”
