EMMA
The grand council hall loomed like a cavern swallowing us whole, its towering stone pillars casting long, judgmental shadows across the polished floors.
I stood there, brittle as frost, with Ian a step behind me as if even he wasn't sure whether to shield me or shove me into the fire.
There were more of them than I had imagined, more than ten, maybe fifteen seated like vultures on either side of a long table. And at the center, flanked by all her dignity and disdain, sat Ian's mother, regal and cold, her lips pressed into a thin, lethal line.
Nyx sat beside her, draped in a velvet dress the color of blood, her eyes glittering like broken glass, her smirk a dagger pointed right at me.
My palms sweated. My fingers twitched against the skirt of my dress. I wanted to run but my feet stayed rooted, trapped in the same nightmare I had been stumbling through for months.
