She looked down to avoid the god’s stare and squeezed her eyelids shut. She found the
courage to look up again.
The Black One was gone.
Vieri pulled the queen’s lifeless body from the pool and squeezed it against his trembling
chest. His wailing drowned the holy chamber in woe.
Lucia’s dreams of an idyllic life crumbled, sucked into the black god’s tempest of dust.