Chapter 6. The Mark Beneath the Mark

Before dawn’s first light, Aeryn was summoned. The sky had only begun to surrender its darkness—an iron-hued gray bleeding into pale blue—just after the frost’s glittering diamonds ceased sparkling atop the windowpanes and seeped like cold mercury back into the earth. Elric stood at the threshold, silent as a statue, his long coat still damp with last night’s mist. The collar clung to his neck, droplets trembling on the wool. His eyes were ringed in dark red, rims raw as if sleep had eluded him—or he had refused its solace.

He did not rap on the doorframe. He simply met Aeryn’s gaze, and she rose without a word.

They walked the corridors in near silence. Every footfall on worn flagstones echoed softly under the vaulted ceiling. The wood of the walls sighed in the settling cold; somewhere in the distance, iron gutters creaked with the weight of thawing icicles. Aeryn’s bare feet made no sound against the stone floor, but she felt its chill radiate upward, a shiver that th