Chapter 53. The Severed's Endgame

The transition from the cool, earthy scent of the forest to the stifling heat of the ritual chamber was instantaneous and disorienting. Aria was no longer carried by Torvin, but tossed, like an inert sack of meat, onto a central dais. Though her body remained frozen, her consciousness was fully awake, a panicked prisoner behind the bars of her own skull.

The chamber was deep beneath Theron’s stronghold, a subterranean oven built from black volcanic rock and reinforced with crude, iron scaffolding. The air was thick, heavy with the metallic tang of old blood and the dry, stinging sulfur of Severed Flame magic. The heat was not natural; it was the intense, directed warmth of a purpose-built forge.

Above her, the ceiling was a crisscross of heavy black chains, and embedded in the rock walls were hundreds of crude, flickering torches, each one burning with a greenish-orange fire that gave off no smoke, only blinding, sterile light.

Cassandra stood over her, her face il