What the hell is this place? Stephan thought as his gaze lingered on the woman upon the throne. Her presence was wrong, wrong in the kind of way that made the air too heavy to breathe. She was draped in white that looked older than the mountain itself, her body bound in chains that pulsed faintly with runes of restraint. Who is she?
It looked less like a throne room and more like a tomb. A prison even
His mind flicked back to the mountain outside. The skeletal armies, the cavalry commander infused with lightning. Were they protecting her? Or keeping her locked inside?
The silence fractured.
The woman stirred. Slowly, languidly, as though waking from centuries of sleep. Her lips curved, not with warmth but into something sharp, a smile too hungry. When her voice came, it was low, melodic, and yet each syllable rolled through the chamber like a weight pressing down on his chest.
