The chapel stank of wax and damp air.
A girl with blonde hair knelt before the veiled statue, hands clasped, head bowed. The cloth over the figure's face hung loose where the stone had crumbled, leaving only the lips—smooth, curved, and faintly smiling. Around them, dozens of candles burned with smoke as black as soot, curling up to vanish into the rafters.
"He will come," she whispered. Her voice scraped like sand on marble. The crown in her hands gleamed once before she drove it hard against her chest. The metal sank, slow and deliberate, vanishing into her flesh as if her ribs had been waiting for it.
From the dark behind the altar, two hands reached out. One gloved. One bleeding. Their fingers brushed. The floor split open with a sound like shattering glass.
A banquet hall flickered across a battlefield—tables overturned, swords planted in roast meat, wine running down steps already slick with blood. One hand tried to hold on. The other slipped away.
