Lila woke slowly, her head heavy and her mouth dry with a strange sweet aftertaste. She was no longer in the main chamber. Instead, she lay on a wide, smooth stone altar in a smaller, candle-lit room deep within the old building. Her wrists and ankles were secured with thick black silk ropes to iron rings bolted into the stone at each corner. The position left her spread wide open, completely vulnerable. Her stolen black robe had been removed, leaving her entirely naked under the warm glow of dozens of black and red candles.
The air was thick with incense, myrrh, and the faint coppery scent of blood.
She tested the ropes. They held firm but did not cut into her skin. Her heart hammered as memories flooded back, the priestess’s piercing blue eyes, the cloth over her mouth, the circle of w
