"Come inside."
The voice came from the tomb.
Ancient and worn thin, dry as paper folded a thousand times, and yet it carried through the courtyard without effort. Every shrine maiden within earshot froze where she stood.
The bloodlust cut off as if someone had closed a valve.
Quinlan's helmet tilted toward the mausoleum.
Isveth's hand had not yet left her sash, but her eyes had jumped past him toward the tomb and stayed there.
"What was that?"
"You-" An elder found her voice first, cracked and trembling. "You dare! You throw your filthy tricks at us to shake our faith!"
"Cheap theatrics from a cheap villain!" another spat.
Then the tomb's doors parted.
...
They parted slowly, in the way that doors which had not moved in epochs were bound to. Stone ground against stone with a sound like a mountain clearing its throat.
Every shrine maiden in the courtyard made a sharp sound, a breath that went out and forgot how to come back in.
The staff-bearing elder dropped her staff.
