Eris was no longer in the stone room.
She was inside the vast dark of her own mind. All around her, a sea of wild fire raged, casting long shadows into the void. This was not the pleasant warmth of a hearth; it was the suffocating heat of a dying star, raw and indifferent to human flesh.
Yet beneath her shoulder blades, she felt the firm, freezing weight of Soren's hand. It was an unyielding pillar of ice in the middle of a burning ocean, keeping her tethered to her own name, her own body, and her own heart.
Stay calm Eris, she thought, her inner voice echoing through the space. 'Do not be afraid.'
With the dark lines mapped across her outer skin, the structure of her seal was fully visible. It looked like a massive cage of petrified bone and rusted iron suspended in the fire. She could see every bar, every glowing rune, and every lock.
