Four days in the dark.
Arvella had stopped counting hours and started counting heartbeats. Her own — steady, stubborn, refusing to race even when the acolytes came to check the chains. And Astraea's — slower, deeper, pulsing with a rhythm that felt older than time itself, like the heartbeat of the earth.
The sedation was almost gone. Astraea was no longer a muffled whisper at the end of a long hallway — she was a presence, warm and fierce and growing stronger by the hour. The suppression runes on the chains still glowed, still pressed against Arvella's skin with their cold, dark magic, but the glow was dimmer now. Flickering. Like a candle in a wind that hadn't been there yesterday.
Can you feel it? Astraea asked.
Arvella closed her eyes and reached inward. Past the chains, past the ru
