She tried. Gods, she tried. But the fire was rising, filling her chest cavity, pushing outward with pressure that made breathing difficult, that suggested her ribs might crack if it continued building.
Someone in the crowd made a strangled sound of alarm. "Your Majesty, the sky, "
Soren's gaze snapped upward, and Eris followed despite the pain, despite the fire trying to claw its way free.
The clear blue sky that had presided over their ceremony was darkening. Not the natural darkness of sunset, the sun was still visible on the horizon, still providing light that should have illuminated the mountaintop for at least another hour.
This was something else. Wrong color. Sickly purple-black, like a bruise spreading across the heavens, originating from the direction of the capital city and expanding outward with speed that suggested supernatural rather than meteorological causation.
