影

The uninitiated cannot see the black moon rise over the Demonastery. It mirrors the nighttide, pulsing starward with its invisible light, witnessed only by those anointed in Shadow. Those like Vynnset, the Iron Maiden.

***

“Life is suffering. Life is sacrifice,” intones Vynnset. “The sacrifice of today to save the suffering of tomorrow.”

A dozen faceless creatures rub up against the Iron Maiden’s armor, clawing at the hard floor like cats kneading a blanket. Her piercings grow warm, thawing thechill of the ritual chamber. In her pallid flesh, power resonates from metal to bone. Her creatures feel it too—the anticipation of bloodshed and retribution.

“Drops to moisten the clay, to raise a dam against the flood, lest the sanguine river drown us all.”

Vynnset straightens, fixing her metal tunic in place for the coming rite, the past welling in her mind like blood from a fresh wound. She remembers back to when she was...

...a little girl with flaxen hair sits cross-legged in a wheat field. She cocks her head, listening, then giggles.