The obsidian hall had been reshaped overnight by Aiden's will. Where the anvils had stood, a single raised circular platform now dominated the center—black stone veined with pulsing crimson runes.
Around its outer rim, every living husband lay spreadeagle, wrists and ankles locked into recessed iron cuffs that fused with the platform's edge. Their faces pointed outward, forced to stare into the tiered galleries where the rest of the nobility watched in breathless silence. Inside the circle, the wives and daughters stood in a tighter ring, each gripping the silvered-obsidian leash that ran to her husband's branded throat or— for the widows—to her daughter's collar.
The chains lay slack across the stone, gleaming like serpents waiting to strike.
