The circle was intricate, complex, covered in symbols that even non-mages recognized as fire glyphs.
The kind of markings that appeared in children's cautionary tales about forbidden magic, about power that corrupted, about flames that consumed everything including their masters.
Reader, even the most magically illiterate noble in that chamber knew they were looking at something forbidden. Something dark. Something that should not exist in civilized empire.
But what drew every eye, what made the chamber collectively inhale, was what lay pinned in the circle's center like a trophy.
A piece of jewelry.
Gold chain, delicate and expensive. And suspended from it, catching light like captured flame, a fire opal pendant. The stone glowed with internal heat, orange and red and gold swirling together in patterns that seemed almost alive.
Eris's style. Eris's colors. Eris's stone.
Unmistakably hers.
