For Liera, the last few days had not been a life; they had been a haunting.
When Malakor had first touched her mind, it hadn't felt like an assault. It felt like a drop of cold, black ink falling into a glass of clear water. Slowly, the stain had spread, clouding her thoughts, numbing her will, and eventually turning her very limbs into leaden instruments of a master she didn't recognize.
She had been a passenger in her own body. Behind a thick, grey veil of magical fog, she had watched herself perform tasks she detested. She had stood guard like a wooden doll while the Duke plotted. She had carried orders that she knew were nothing but danger. Worst of all, she had watched her sister walk into a nightmare she couldn't scream a warning about.
Then came the shattering.
It wasn't a physical sound, but a psychic one. It felt as if a crystalline bell had been struck in the center of the universe, sending a high-pitched, golden vibration through every ley line in the manor.
