The manor smelled of winter roses and rot. The scent clung to everything: polished marble floors, velvet drapes, and the faint, medicinal tang of burning ether oil Jonathan Clarke insisted on lighting to "purify the air." It didn't help. Nothing could mask the undertone of decay that lingered in the house now.
Anna stood by the tall window, her reflection faint in the glass, one hand resting lightly on the pronounced curve of her stomach. The city beyond was a blur of snow and smoke, the air shimmering faintly with divine residue. Somewhere in the distance, the cathedral bells tolled, hollow and mournful, a reminder that winter had teeth.
Her husband, the newest of the self-proclaimed divine, god by ascension, and fraud by nature, had not come home. Since the rituals began, he has never returned to their home, or Clarke Manor. He occasionally received Anna in his cathedral office, but never for more than half an hour.
